\nf-y PRICE 25 CENTS. 

North Carolina in the I9th Century. 


THE GREAT ECCLESIASTICAL TRIAL 


JJ 




T 


mi 


REPRESENTATIVE FROM WARREN COUNTY, 

Who was expelled for opinion sake, 

BY THE 

On February 24th, 1875. 


FOR SALE BY 


J. WILLIAMS THORNE. 

Ridgeway, N. C. 

Orders for the pamphlet may be sent to Mr. Thorne's address 
at Raleigh, N. C., until March 20th, afterwards at 
Ridgeway. 

[COPY RIGHT APPLIED FOR.] 

























i 





d 


THE GREAT 


\ 



North Carolina House of Representatives ex-pells one 
of its members for Heresy. 


“ E.y their fruits ye shall know them.”—J esus. 

“Mark now, how plain a tile shall put you down.” 

Shakspeare. 

On the 20th of February, 1875, the House of Repre¬ 
sentatives of the State of North Carolina resolved itself 
into a great Ecclesiastical Court for the trial of J. Wil¬ 
liams Thorne, one of the members from Warren, on the 
charge of Infidelity. 

A certain pamphlet written by J. Williams Thorne in 
reply to a lecture delivered by Jos. Barker, comparing In¬ 
fidels and Christians, was the only evidence offered against 
him. This evidence was for a long time in the hands of 
the “ Committee on Privileges and Elections.” But as- 
the Committee could not agree, they reported the case 
back to the “ House” for its judgment and decision. Af¬ 
ter four stormy and exciting sessions, the floor, lobbies 
and galleries being crowded with eager listeners, the 
*“ House,” or rather the Ecclesiastical Court, passed on 
the 24th of February at midnight, by a vote of 4<> to 31, 
under the pressure of the inexorable previous question, 
tbe following resolution of expulsion : 

Whereas. J. W. Thorne, the member from Warren county, has- 
advocated, and promulgated a most blasphemous document, subver¬ 
sive of the principles of the Constitution of North Carolina, and of 
sound morality; therefore, 

Resolved, That the said J. W. Thorne be and he is hereby expelled 
fr,#m a seat on this floor. 


/ 








9 


The Constitution of North Carolina declares that all 
persons who shall deny the Being of Almighty God, are 
disqualified for holding any civil office of trust or profit in 
the State. This is the only religious test in it. Until 
the last half hour of the trial, the charge against me was, 
that I denied the existence of Almighty God. Finding 
that they could not sustain this charge, and that the 
House would refuse to expel me on it, they substituted, at 
the very last moment, the one given in the resolution of 
expulsion. At the same time they moved the “ previous 
question,” thereby refusing to grant me the opportunity 
which I demanded, of defending myself against this new 
charge. They refused even to postpone the vote until the 
next day, to be taken at 12 o’clock without debate. So 
fearful were they that a little delay might cause them to 
fail in their darling scheme of expelling me. 

Ostensibly, I was. expelled on account of my religion. 
But there can be no doubt that the real cause was my 
radical Republicanism. 1 have evidence that it was pre¬ 
determined even before I took my seat. The following 
paragraph, published in the ‘‘ Daily News” two days be¬ 
fore I reached the Capital, is so full of falsehood, preju¬ 
dice and intense dislike, as to make it evident that the 
merest shadow of au excuse was all that would be want¬ 
ing to procure the passage of a resolution of expulsion: 
“ The newly elected Representative in the House from 
Warren is a carpet-bag civil-righter and miscegenatist. 
Alas! poor Warren, you once gave us a decent negro re¬ 
presentative, and while we thought you could not fall any 
lower, yet ‘you have gone and done it’ We had much 
rather seen Nathan Sledge, York Walker or Louis Parker 
come than old Thorne.” 

Surely, it is no wonder they expelled me, when, before 
I took my seat, their organ, the “Daily News” published 
to the world that any one of the above named persons, 
convicted of infamous crimes, would have been a repre¬ 
sentative more to their taste. This is unmistakable proof 
that pious Democrats, who are eager to preserve “the 
principles of the Constitution of North Carolina, and of 
sound morality,” would prefer the vilest criminal as a leg¬ 
islator, to a “ civil Tighter ,” who believes that the “ Gol¬ 
den Rule” is as safe and beneficial in statesmanship as it 
is in private life. But it appears that I not only believe 


3 


in the u Golden Ride” as embodied in the “ Civil Rights 
Bill” and in Jefferson’s immortal declaration of the un¬ 
alienable equal rights of all men. 

But I am also a Miscegenatist! Who told you, Mr. 
u News” that I was a Miscegenatist! Bring forward 
your witness, and he shall have the fullest and amplest 
opportunity ot proving the charge, before the Superior 
Court of Warren county. Never, either in theory or 
practice, has miscegenation lard the slightest encourage¬ 
ment from me. The same is almost equally true of the 
party to which I belong. But can this be said as regards 
the Democracy f In Warren county I am acquainted 
with many persons of mixed blood, and I do not know ot 
one who does not trace his lightness of color to Demo¬ 
cratic fatherhood. A friend of mine who once lived in 
the State of Delaware tells a good and true story, illus¬ 
trating this strong Democratic affinity for colored women. 
A gentleman who had once been a Democrat, changed to 
a Be publican. He was a candidate for office, and was 
stumping his district. As usual the Democrats charged 
him with Miscegenation. In reply he said, “ I know of 
more than two dozen children in my neighborhood of 
mixed blood, and they all, but one, have Democratic 
fathers. And of that exceptional one, I myself am the 
father. I assumed this relationship while I was a Dem¬ 
ocrat.” 

There certainly can be no question, that, if in the near 
or far future of our nation there shall arise any great good 
from this Anglo African admixture of blood, history will 
be forced to make her impartial record that almost the 
whole credit of its accomplishment will be justly due to 
the Democratic party. But if, as Messrs. Glenn and 
Foote think, this admixture of blood is destined to destroy 
the Anglo-Saxon race of this fair and beautiful South 
land, then surely, should they make all haste to correct 
their late egregious blunder, and come back to the Bepub- 
lican, the only pure race party on the continent. 

Government is not a religious, but a secular necessity. 
A union of government with religion, says Jefferson, is 
about the worst possible. Gladstone once wrote a book 
in favor of the union of Church and State. In this book 
he undertook to show that a religion was as necessary to 
a government as it is to an individual. A government 


4 


without a religion, he asserted, could not perform its 
functions justly. But the book was ably reviewed by 
Macauley, who proved that human life and property were 
the most secure in those States where there was no estab¬ 
lished religion. He illustrated this by referring to the 
States of New England. All history proves, said Raynor 
in the North Carolina Constitutional Convention of 1835, 
that a government is always despotic in exact proportion 
as it is under the control of a church. The only real duty 
of government as regards religion, is to see that the differ¬ 
ent sects do not infringe on the rights of one another, nor 
those of humanity. The most dangerous power in the 
world is a man, or Church, or State, that conscientiously 
does wickedly for God’s sake. Under this religious delu¬ 
sion, countless millions have suffered death and torture- 
Nor can the persecuting spirit be ever entirely exorcised 
from a nation, so long as the Church controls the govern¬ 
ment, or has even the slighest connection with it. No* 
government has a right to inflict pains, penalties or disa¬ 
bilities on account of religious, any more than for scien¬ 
tific, opinions. That great expounder of law, the immortal 
Blackstone, has'declared that “ all persecution for diver¬ 
sity of opinions, however ridiculous and absurd they may 
be, is contrary to every principle of sound policy and civil 
freedom.” Spinosa, Servetus and Shelley were better 
men, and would have been more safe as legislators, than* 
such religious bigots as Calvin and Laud. The first were 
conservators of human happiness and human life. The 
last destroyed both for the glory of God. 

The Democratic religious bigots of the “ House” not 
being able to sustain the charge of Atheism, first made 
against me, have expelled me because I have “advocated 
and promulgated a most blasphemous doctrine, subver¬ 
sive of the principles of the Constitution of North Caro¬ 
lina and of sound morality ” I propose to try these Dem¬ 
ocratic bigots by that grandly true test and unerring' 
standard ot religions faith, laid down by Jesus himself as 
the only sure guide for his followers. “By their fruits ye~ 
shall know them.” When I took my seat in the u House ” 
I made solemn affirmation that I would support the Con¬ 
stitution of North Carolina and of the United States. 
They with right hand on the Bible called God to witness 
that they would do the same. Let us examine their votes 


✓ 


and see how they have kept their oaths. According to 
the present Constitution of North Carolina I have the 
most unquestionable right to deny the Divine Authority 
of the Bible, or make objections to any portion of it. The 
conclusive proof of this is found in the fact that the 
framers of the present Constitution, left out all that por¬ 
tion of the religious test in the one immediately preceding 
it, which disqualified for holding civil office, “all persons 
who shall deny the truth of the Christian religion, or the 
divine authority of the Old or New Testament.” Yet in 
the face of all this, they hesitated not to violate their sa¬ 
cred oaths of office, and expel me because I wrote a calm, 
dispassionate criticism of certain portions of the Bible, 
to which they cannot and dare not attempt to reply. Not 
content with this palpable violation of the great organic 
law of the State, and their own solemn oaths to support 
it, they passed unconstitutional municipal bills for Bal- 
eigh, Newbern and Wilmington of such an anti-republi¬ 
can character, that the old worn out rotten Borough 
system of Great Britain, now dead and forever passed 
away, was scarcely more unjust and shameless in its ope¬ 
ration. By their municipal gerrymandering they annulled 
and blotted out in those cities all traces of a republican 
form of government, and substituted a moneyed oligarchy 
in its stead. In this way thousands of our colored citi¬ 
zens are as effectually robbed of their political and civil 
rights as they ever could be, under the rule of the most ab¬ 
solute monarch. 

This is the way these religious bigots sustain and show 
their love for the principles of the Constitution. This is 
the way they live up to the “ Golden Buie.” This is the 
way they keep their solemn oaths of office. In truth the 
great principles of religions and civil liberty, as guaran¬ 
teed in the Constitution, the “Golden Rule” itself, and the 
inviolable oath of office, are all as nothing, when in the 
way of a religious prejudice, or of their own selfish pur¬ 
poses. Like the Pharisees of old they talk much of their 
religion and ot their a sound morality ” But it is “by 
their fruits ye shall know them.” And the fruits they 
bring forth are very bitter to the taste of God’s weak and 
long oppressed children. They are indeed practical Athe¬ 
ists. If they really believed in God they would believe in 
the “Golden Rule ,” and its embodiment, the “Civil Rights 


G 


JBilV ’ “ If a man say, be believes in God, and yet bates 

and oppresses bis weaker brother, be is a liar and the 
truth is not in him.” This is severe language, but his¬ 
tory proves it absolutely true of the whole tribe of reli¬ 
gious bigots who persecute for opinions sake. And as for 
those who occupy high places in the Church calling ever 
in the fervor of their devotion, “Lord, Lord, have we not 
glorified thy name ? Open unto us the door of thy 
heaven. Let us come into the joy of thy salvation,” and 
yet refuse to lift the heavy hand of oppression from 
the weak and little ones of his children ; shall they not 
hear these startling words from the great King of kings 
when he shall “come in the clouds of heaven” to judge 
the world : “ Inasmuch as ye did it not to one of the least 
of these, ye did it not to me. Therefore, depart ye cursed 
into everlasting fire prepared for the Devil and his angels.” 
These solemn words may sound rather harsh, and the fire 
of punishment may seem a little hotter than these reli¬ 
gious bigots could have anticipated as a reward for their 
Pharisaical self-righteousness; but it is a judgment of 
their own choosing, and they cannot object to the inevita¬ 
ble justice of the application to their case. Bating a lit¬ 
tle of its austerity, it is indeed one of the finest rebukes 
to hypocritical professors of religion, to be found in the 
whole Bible. I was expelled from the House of Repre¬ 
sentatives, not because I denied the existence of a God, 
(for I gave the most irrefragable proof that I never did,) 
not because I denied the miraculous conception of Jesus; 
not because I was not, but because I was a Christian, and 
was doing my best in a legislative capacity to carry out in 
practice that great fundamental principal of Christianity, 
the “Golden Rule” Very many of their acts of legisla¬ 
tion go to prove that these bigots in religion have no 
faith in the “ Golden Rule no faith in Christianity, no 
faith in a just God. 

I was arraigned before the “House” of Representatives 
on a charge of Atheism. They tried me on that charge ; 
but they expelled me because I “ advocated and promul¬ 
gated a most blasphemous doctrine, subversive of the 
principles of the Constitution of Korth Carolina and of 
sound morality.” 

I shall now proceed to prove that the false charge on 
which these bigoted legislators expelled me, is true as ap- 


7 


plied to them. I have already shown who are the sub* 
verters of the principles of the Constitution of North 
Carolina. I will now show in such a manner that he who 
runs may read, who are the subverters of the u principles 
of sound morality.” I shall arraign these Legislators who 
have assumed to dictate to others a standard of sound 
morality, before the civilized world. I shall appeal to that 
high court to give judgment on the charge against me. 
I shall call upon these wise censors ot morals to bring; 
forward the proof that there is a single word, sentence or 
thought in the u Barker ” pamphlet “ subversive of the 
soundest principles of morality ” 

In the trial before the House my accusers asserted that 
every word in the Bible from the beginning to the end was. 
absolutely true. Messrs. Staples, Walker and Gudger 
were all understood to take the ground that he who de¬ 
nied the justice or the goodness of any portion of it, de¬ 
nied the existence of God himself. If God had been rep¬ 
resented in the Bible as an immortal fiend, no exception 
could be taken to such a horribly wicked characterization, 
for God himself inspired it. But the Koran, the Shaster 
and other sacred books are also claimed as inspirations 
from God. How then shall we determine which is the 
truest and best inspiration f Surely we can only make a 
wise choice by applying our reason, our judgment and our 
conscience after a fair and candid consideration of the 
merits of all. This, it mnst be admitted, is the only way 
in which we could make an enlightened choice. And it is 
also equally certain that after we have made such choice 
this is the only w r ay in which we can keep it. Those per¬ 
sons who sat in council and determined some books of the 
Bible to be Canonical and some Apocryphal, had no more 
right to do so than I have now to reject such portions of 
the Scriptures as I may deem inconsistent with reason 
and justice. Luther, indeed, in the exercise of that right 
of private judgment so dear to his Protestant followers, 
actually did reject two whole books of the New Testa¬ 
ment as uncanonical. It is only then by an appeal to 
reason and conscience that we can determine what is 
good and what is evil in the Bible. If it be all good and 
“sound morality nothing can shake it from its solid 
foundation If not, like the house built on the sand, it 
will be sure to fall. Like all other books, the Bible must 


8 


stand on its own merits. A good book is not hurt by crit¬ 
icism. 

I have been looking over my u Barh j r ” pamphlet to 
see it I could find wherein it subverted the “principles of 
sound morality ,” as charged against it by the pious bigots 
who sat in judgment on its teachings. I took the alleged 
blasphemous tract in my hand and asked myself seriously 
and conscientiously what “principles of sound morality” 
are subverted by the “doctrines advocated and promul¬ 
gated” in its pages, an 1 here is my emphatic answer: 

It advocates a total abstinence from all that can intox¬ 
icate, and temperance and purity in every act of life. It 
discourages the exercise of revengeful passion. It is op¬ 
posed to all offensive wars, and only justifies those waged 
in defence of life or liberty. It advocates just and equal 
civil rights for every member of the human family without 
regard to sex, color or condition. It is in favor of free 
speech and free religion, and opposes every form of slavery 
and oppression, whether mental or physical, “that holds 
control over man.” It recommends the establishment of 
free churches where the different forms of religious faith 
shall be as freely discussed as any other questions affec¬ 
ting the welfare of the race. It recognizes a God of infi¬ 
nite power and infinite goodness who sustains in harmony 
an infinitude of worlds, and an incomprehensible uni¬ 
verse of universes. It recognizes the love and worship of 
this Supreme Being as our highest ideal of truth and 
good. It defends him against some false and blasphe¬ 
mous characterizations and vile imputations which we find 
in the Bible as inconsistent with and derogatory to his 
attributes of infinite power, wisdom and goodness It 
gives historical proof, that, in proportion as the Christian 
churches have endorsed these infamous and blasphemous 
characterizations of the Deity, they have endorsed and 
supported all forms of oppression and tyranny, as well as 
a merciless persecution for opinion’s sake. It defends him 
against the degrading imputation that like a weak and 
vain earthly monarch, his happiness depends on the cease¬ 
less flattery and adulation of his subjects. It defends 
him against the blasphemous charge of keeping up a fiery 
hell of intensest torment, not to reform his children who 
have disobeyed him, but to gratify forever and forever¬ 
more his unsatisfied revenge. In the matter of Jepthah’s 


9 


vow, it does not call him a shylock, hut defends him 
against the infamous charge that he ever made such a 
wicked shylock bargain with Jepthaii or any one else. It 
defends him agaiast the charge that he ever sanctified the 
selling or giving to strangers for food the flesh of such 
animals as died of themselves. It defends him against 
the charge that he gave his sanction to the following un¬ 
speakable enormity, as related in the 31st chapter of the 
book of Numbers: “Now, therefore, kill every male 
among the little ones, and kill every woman that hath 
known man by lying with him. But all the women chil¬ 
dren that have not known man by lying with him, keep 
alive for yourselves.” It defends him against the charge 
that the cruel and bloody-minded David was a man after 
his own heart. It denies that he gave his sanction to 
David’s wicked prayer against his enemies in the I09th 
Psalm. It defends him against the scandalous charge that 
he ever sanctioned such u sound morality ” as concubin¬ 
age and Polgamy. It defends him against the charge 
of sanctioning such “ sound morality ” as that related of 
Lot and his daughters, just after they were saved from 
the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. It defends 
him against the charge of blasting a tig tree, merely 
because “the time of figs was not yet.” It defends 
him against the blasphemous charge of committing, 
through the agency of the Holy Ghost, a kind of 
mystical fornication with the Virgin Mary. It defends 
him against the charge that he struck Ananias and Sap- 
phira dead for lying, and then, for all time to come, per¬ 
mitted other and more infamous liars to ply their vocation 
undisturbed. 

I might give many more examples of a like character; 
but these are amply sufficient to show that I have not 
“ advocated and promulgated a blasphemous doctrine, 
subversive of the principles of the Constitution of North 
Carolina and of sound morality.” But that the House 
of Representatives of North Carolina have shown by 
their action against me that they endorse and believe 
all the false and wicked characterizations of the ever- 
living and just God, found in the Bible; and are, there¬ 
fore, the real blasphemers—the real subverters of the 
principles of the Constitution and of sound morality. 

Therefore, I arraign them before the bar of the civil- 


10 

izecl world, and in the sacred cause of truth, justice, 
freedom and a pure and undefiled worship of the ever 
living and Infinite God, I ask and calmly await its sure 
judgment against them. 

J. WILLIAMS THORNE. 
The following is an exact copy of the “Barker ” pam¬ 
phlet. This was the only evidence brought against me. 


emruiii mims ah hustius. 


REPLY TO JOS. BARKER’S LECTURE. 
By "Williams Thorne. 


Early in January last, I had the pleasure of hearing one 
of the three lectures, delivered in Ooatesville, by the Rev. 
Joseph Barker. The lecture was, on the whole, eloquent 
and able. He said many good and true things, along with 
some others that seemed to reflect, unjustly, on the Lib¬ 
erals or Radicals in religion. At the close of the lecture, 
I proposed to Mr. Barker that we should discuss before the 
people of Ooatesville, the great question involving the fate 
of Christianity, as a religion, and the “Divine Authority 
of the Bible .” 

This, Mr Barker declined; alleging, that a hemorrhage 
of blood, with which he had, of late, been afflicted, render¬ 
ed it unsafe for him to engage in an exciting discussion. 
Besides, since his conversion to the religion of Christian¬ 
ity, his life bad become too valuable to the world to run 
such risk of losing it I then proposed that we should talk 
the matter over, before a few friends, either in Mr. Win- 
dle’s or Mr. Roberts’ parlor. He was entirely willing, he 
said, to hear any thing I might have to say, but would 
make no reply. 

This showed Mr. Barker’s disinclination to debate, in so 
strong a light, that I did not feel at liberty to press the 
matter further. 

Still, hoping Mr. Barker might be induced, on further 
consideration, to accept the challenge, I authorized Mr. 
Thos. Windle, in such case, to arrange the time and place 
of meesing to suit Mr. Barker and his friends. For more 
than two weeks after, while in Chester Count} 7 , I held my¬ 
self in readiness to attend to the discussion at the shortest 
notice. Even after I had gone South, Mr. Windle was 
authorized to arrange for me to come Korth, and meet 
Mr. Barker, on any fair and equal basis of discussion. 





12 


Just before I left for the South, I was informed that Mr. 
Barker would lecture in Market Hall, Goatesville, ou the 
4th of February, when, after the close of the lecture , a 
short time would be given to me or any other person, to 
ask questions or state objections. Of course, I could not 
be expected to remain in Chester County until February 
4th, to the neglect of important business, merely to meet 
so very partial and slight an acceptance of my challenge. 

But even this partial and slight acceptance would have 
been gladly, met, had an opportunity to do so, been pre¬ 
sented, during my stay in Chester County. And if, in¬ 
stead of the lecture ou February 4th, there had been the 
offer of a full and free discussion, I should have been more 
than happy to set aside important business, and remain 
until that time. 

Under these circumstances, I was not a little surprised, 
when, two weeks after the lecture on the 4th of February ? 
I received an advertisement, announcing that Mr. Barker 
would lecture on the evening of that day, in Market Hall, 
Coatesville; and that, “ having been challenged by J. Wil¬ 
liams Thorne , he would devote three-fourths of an hour 
with him or others for discussion .” 

For reasons already stated, it is well known in Coates¬ 
ville, that I would not, as the advertisement implied, be 
present on the evening of the 4th of February at Mr. Bar¬ 
ker’s lecture. It is true, I did challenge Mr. Barker, but 
not to a u three-fourths o f an hour discussion ,” to come off 
at the close of his lecture. Still, had I been in Chester 
County, even so slight and partial an opportunity would 
have been embraced with the greatest alacrity. Surely, 
neither Mr. Barker, nor the “Young Men's Christian As¬ 
sociation ” who advertised the lecture, could, fora moment 
dream that such an advertisement of my name was a fair 
acceptance of my challenge. 

As I do not expect, and can scarcely hope now, that 
Mr. Barker will give me a fair opportunity to meet him 
before the people. I propose to reply, through your pa¬ 
per, to the sweeping charge, made in his lecture in Coates¬ 
ville, ou the 6th of January, that as a class, those who 
denied the Divine authority of the Bible, were inferior in 
morals to those who thus accepted it. 

It was barely possible, he said, that a man might be 
strictly moral, and yet be an Infidel. Still, it was a com- 


13 


bination of qualities not often met with. Tn all his long 
association with the Radicals, lie had found but few truly 
good men. He had lived among them in Salem, Ohio, 
where they made a great outcry tor liberty, but he soon 
found, that it was not only their own liberty that they 
wanted, but his as well Then in deep disgust, he left 
them, and sought for himself a home in the wilds of Ne¬ 
braska. There, surrounded by wild scenes and wild men, 
under the free open sky of heaven, he once more, found 
leisure and inclination to hold communion with the great 
God of the universe, as revealed in the Bible. There, 
amid sickness and death-bed suffering, for which he then 
could offer no consolation, lie caught the first clear glim¬ 
pse of his fallen state. There he first began to doubt his 
own doubting. Then he told us how with easy and joyous 
steps, he soon found himself back again into the bosom of 
God’s Church. And now he intends to devote the remain¬ 
ing years of his life to the service of that Church in order 
that he may make some small amends for the great injury 
he did it, while under the dark shadow of Infidelity. 

Such in substance, was Mr. Barker’s statement, as I 
apprehended It. If I have in any wise, done him injustice, 
it will give me great pleasure to make such reparation as 
truth and justice demand. 

“By their fruits ye shall know them,” was one of the 
best of file many good sayings of Jesus. I propose to try 
Mr. Barker, the Christian Church and the Bible itself by 
this standard And first; as to Mr. Barker; Has the 
world been made better by his restoration to the Christian 
Church '! Is he now doing more good to the a little” and 
oppressed “ ones ” of humanity, than he did while a Lib¬ 
eral ? According to his own account, immediately, on his 
conversion to Christianity, he returned to England and 
there, as editor of a newspaper, put himself in opposition 
to the leading Liberals in politics and religion. This he 
did, at the same time, declining, to meet Mr. Bradlaugh, 
their acknowledged leader in public discussion. As a Lib¬ 
eral he suffered persecution in England for liis advocacy 
of a Republican form of government and his maintenance 
of the equal rights of all men. But when he joined the 
Church of England, lie no longer favored the formation of 
a Republic. He no longer mingled with the common peo¬ 
ple and sympathized with them in their efforts to establish 


14 


the equal rights of all. In England the Church and State 
are one. Mr. Barker, therefore, in selecting the Church of 
England as his refuge from Infidelity, became morally re¬ 
sponsible for the wrongs and oppressions of the Govern¬ 
ment. As a Liberal be sought to reform the Government. 
As a Christian he sustains its oppressive aristocracy. 
When in this country, while a Liberal, he attended Anti¬ 
slavery Conventions and made eloqvent speeches against 
slavery. When he became a Christian he ceased to op¬ 
pose slavery, and was an earnest advocate of the independ¬ 
ence of the slave-holding Confederacy. 

In regard to the moral character of liberals; as a class 
they compare favorably with the members of any Evangel¬ 
ical Church I have ever known. In the neighborhood of 
Longwood, Chester Co., Pa., where liberals most abound 
and give character to the community, there is no where a 
more temperate, a more moral and orderly people. The 
Hicksite Quakers and Unitarians, who are, strictly speak¬ 
ing, Socinian, and do not believe in the divinity of Jesus, or 
that he is any more a part of the God^head, than any oth¬ 
er equally wise and good man, have a world-wide fame for 
temperance, honesty, and a philanthrophy that includes 
the whole human race. The poor and weak have ever 
found in them a heart-warm sympathy, and a friendly 
helping hand. In New England, the coming of the Evan¬ 
gelical Puritan was death to the Indian. In Pennsylvania, 
the coming of the half Infidel Quaker, was a blessed com¬ 
ing of peace and joy, uever to be forgotten. Who were the 
leaders in the great Antislavery and Temperance move¬ 
ments? Surely, not the Evangelical Christian Churches. 
They did their utmost to strangle these great reforms in 
their infancy. It was Thomas Ilerttell, a professed Infi¬ 
del of New York, who, in 1818, wrote and published the 
first a tetotal ” temperance tract. The great antislavery 
leaders were forced to come out of the Evangelical Church¬ 
es, in order to make effective war against Slavery. They 
found all the Evangelical Churches in close aliance with the 
Slave-holders, and in opposition to emancipation. Forty 
years ago, not a clergyman in Boston could be found, will¬ 
ing to speak from his pulpit against slavery. Not one 
would lend his pulpit to Win. Lloyd Garrison, for the pur¬ 
pose of protesting against the great national evil. It was 
in an “Infidel Hall ” that the Gospel of Antislavery was 


15 


first preached to the people of Boston. All over the land, 
the Evangelical Churches, either violently opposed, or re¬ 
fused to give any countenance to the Autislavery move¬ 
ment. Had the Evangelical Churches preached human 
justice and human morals, instead of the mystical super- 
sitition of the Trinity and Resurrection, there would have 
been, neither occasion nor need of the great Reform asso¬ 
ciations. The whole civilized world would, long ago, have 
united against the mighty Trinity of human evils, Intem¬ 
perance, War and Slavery, and swept them out of exist¬ 
ence. 

The Evangelical Churches have always stood in the way 
of just and equal liberty. They have never invoked the 
favor of the Goddess, except for their own selfish purposes. 
Not one of them has ever originated, or made a first move¬ 
ment in any great moral reform, where its own immediate, 
selfish ends were not the primary cause. It was to accom¬ 
plish ends, in themselves, not wholly good, that caused 
Marrin Luther and Henry VIIX to break away from the 
Romish Church. They had personal as well as moral rea¬ 
sons for their high appreciation of u the right of private 
judgment .” The Evangelical Puritans of New England 
maintained “ the right of private judgment” for themselves, 
but not for their brother heretics. They wanted liberty, 
but they wanted it all for themselves.” The Young Men's 
Christian Association ” of New York, have, lately, thrown 
George Francis Train into Ludlow street jail, for publish¬ 
ing obscene extracts from the Bible, which they are send¬ 
ing forth among the people, and to the heathen of every 
land as the holiest and best of all books. They have done 
the same to Victoria C. Woodbull for daring to publish, 
not in a slandering spirit, but for the purification of a gross 
social atmosphere, an account of some obscene and im¬ 
moral doings, which, they themselves, sunk as they are, 
away down, deep in the bottomless pit of hypocritical pie¬ 
ty, have never raised a finger to suppress or reform. 

The pious churchman may say or do almost anything 
that may please him; and it shall be no harm. Like a 
quotation from the Bible, however gross or evil it may 
seem, it must be good. Like the king of a great realm, 
howevever much he may play the tyrant, he can never do 
wrong. Henry Ward Beecher is more popular in his 
Church than ever, though the heavy charges preferred 


16 


against him remain unanswered. Vice-President Colfax is 
invited to address “The Young Men’s Christian Associa¬ 
tion” in Philadelphia. He comes, and is received with all 
the demonstrations of joy and approval, that the pious 
young men know how to give, although covered all over 
with the Credit Mobilier scandal. 

It is a rare sight to see an Infidel in jail, except when 
placed there by religious bigotry, on account of his opinion. 
Persons convicted of murder and other high crimes, are 
almost always found to be firm believers in the Bible. 
Statistics prove that there is less crime and immorality 
among the half Infidel, Hicksite Quakers and Unitarians 
than is to be found in an equal number of Evangelical 
Church members. When New England was almost wholly 
Evangelical, she persecuted heretics and believed in rum 
and slavery. Now she is largely Unitarian. As she be¬ 
came less and less Evangelical, she became more and more 
just, and more and more humane in her sympathies. 

It was in the u Dark Ages’’ when Infidels were few,, 
that Evangelical Orthodoxy reigned supreme over Europe. 
It was an Infidel heresy, tne right of private judgment, 
that dispelled the thick clouds of moral and mental dark- 
uess, and began the great “ Reformation ” which can onlv 
end with the destruction ‘‘of all that for evil holds control 
over the minds of men.” 

As the Christian Church rose in power and influence* 
civilization declined. And now civilization is advancing, 
in exact proportion as the Church loses its power and in¬ 
fluence among men. 

When any great national wrong is about to be abolished* 
and the people refuse to give it further protection, it is 
sure toffy to the Church as its list refuge place, and like 
the evil-doer of old, die there, holding fast to the horns of 
the altar. Whether in science, morals, statesmanship or 
religion, the Church has always been the last to give up 
an old error; the last to accept a new truth So hath hi¬ 
story written her impartial and unimpeachable verdict 

The Church has no positive influence against injustice 
or wrong. It never, knowingly, does any good thing that 
is hnpopular. It is a mere weather vane, showing which 
way the popular wind blows. 

During the late civil war; in the South, it was for Jef¬ 
ferson Davis. In the North, it was for Abraham Lincoln. 


17 


In the “Revolutionary War,” it was for the British on one 
side of the Atlantic, and for the Americans on the other. 
In 1706, on the 18th of March, a bill for the repeal of the 
“ Stamp Act ” was before the “ House of Lords A large 
majority of the Lords temporal were in favor of its repeal; 
but all the Lords spiritual—the whole “ Bench of Bishops” 
were in favor of forcing the Americans to submit with fire 
and sivord ” We owe it to such liberals as Franklin, Paine 
and Jefferson, that the United States’ Constitution is 
wholly Humanitarian in its scope ot operation, and with¬ 
out any religious test. Even at this late day it is the dar¬ 
ling hope of some Evangelical bigots to have God or Jesus 
recognized in the great organic law‘ of the nation. 

The Evangelical Church has almost always, defended a 
popular wrong and opposed an unpopular right. This 
course is reversed by the unbelieving Infidel or Liberal. 
He is almost sure to oppose the popular wrong and defend 
the unpopular right. During* the eighteenth century, 
while Infidels under the head of Voltaire, Diderote and D. 
Alembert were thundering against slavery and appression, 
every where, Evangelical bigots, were defending Slavery, 
and, even the “ Slave Trade” from the Bible. In Massa¬ 
chusetts and Connecticut, Evangelical Puritans were set¬ 
ting in beautiful juxta position on their Statute books, 
“ SlaveLaws” and “ Blue Laws” side by side. u It was 
only,” says Hildreth, “the heretics of Providence who were 
willing to do the simple justice of giving equal liberty to 
white and black mankind.” In the settlement of all the 
Southern Colonies, we find Evangelical religion harmon¬ 
iously blending itself with Slavery. The celebrated defend¬ 
er of the Christian religion, John Locke, in his schedule of 
laws for South Carolina, inserted a provision in favor of 
slavery. Keligion afterwards taught the people ot South 
Carolina to fine a man for working his slaves on the Sab¬ 
bath ; but it altogether failed to teach him that slavery is a 
sin. In Georgia, slavery was at first prohibited, but af¬ 
terwards introduced, under pretence of propagating the 
Gospel. Whitfield and Habersham, though as men, they 
were opposed to slavery; yet, as a means of spreading the 
Gospel, and as Christians they favored its introduction. 
The pious John Newton, the intimate friend of the poet 
Cowpe'. did not disdain to go out in a slave ship, engaged 
2 


18 


in the slave trade, with Bibles and Hymn books to evan¬ 
gelize the heathen in Africa. 

But even in Mahommedan countries, the people are re¬ 
presented as more honest and truthful, and far less avari¬ 
cious than Christians. They are also more temperate than 
Christians, as wine and strong drink are strictly forbidden 
by the Mohammedan religion. Unlike the followers of 
Jesus, they never permitted any one to be held as a slave, 
who accepted the faith of Mahomet. Candid men will be 
surprised to learn that American slavery established by 
Evangelical Christian men, was of a more severe and rigid 
character than that of Mohammedan countries. In proof 
of this, Gen. Eaton, Consul of the United States at Tunis, 
in 1799, writes, that ‘‘Truth and justice demand from me 
the eonfession, that Christian slaves among the barbarians 
of Africa, are treated with more humanity than the Afri¬ 
can slaves among the Christians of civilized America.” 
The tree is known by its fruit ” We have arraigned the 
great Christian Church and tried it by its own standard. 
The fruit has been found neither pleasant nor wholesome. 
Very much of it has been proved to be destructive of hu¬ 
man life and human happiness. In comparison with Mo- 
hammedism, in many essential points, it is impossible to 
give it the preference. Even among the heathen, in many 
instances, it has carried destruction instead of conserva¬ 
tion. The fruit of the Bible is the Christian Church itself. 
Not, as we have shown, very good for humanity, but such 
as we might expect from so evil a tree. There is little in 
the history of the Jewish nation that a good man could 
wish to imitate. As a people they were proud, selfish, 
avarious, bigoted and to the last degree, barbarous and 
% cruel. Nations so unfortunate as to border on them, or to 
lie in their path-way of conquest, had no right of life, lib¬ 
erty, or property, which they felt bound to respect. They 
waged an exterminating merciless w r ar, against all the na¬ 
tions occupying land which they washed to possess. Not 
content with their own power to destroy, they claimed an 
alliance with the great God of the Universe, and that he 
had chosen them to assist him in doing such horrible wick¬ 
edness. 

It will be only necessary to touch, in the lightest man¬ 
ner, a few of the more prominent points in the history of 
this most peculiar people, so strangely chosen of the Lord, 


19 


to show, that while they must he to all the coming ages, 
an instructive warning, they have left no bright, or even 
-safe example for mankind to follow. 

Look at Abraham, so full of fanatic phrensy, that he 
was ready to illustrate a strong, blind, unreasoning faith in 
his God, by the commission of one of the greatest of crimes, 
—the sacrificial murder of his only son. It is enough to 
say, that no father can enact so absurd and wicked a farce 
now, aud keep outside of prison or asylum walls. Eead 
the story of Lot and his daughters after the burning of 
Sodom and Gomorrah; and then imagine, what must have 
been the moral condition of those destroyed, if it was worse 
than that of those who were saved. Jepthath’s vow is a 
story of fanatical and tragic horror, scarcely equalled in the 
annals of mankind. The cruel bargain between God and 
Jepthath, was alike degrading and disgraceful to both par¬ 
ties engaged in it. Not for the empire of the world, should 
Jepthath have made such a rash vow. Not for the Empire 
of Heaven should God have permitted its fulfilment. Had 
He been a merciful God, He might, as in the case of Abra¬ 
ham, have substituted a ram or some other unimportant 
animal to be the first to meet the victorious Jepthah ; or 
he might have generously waived the bloody sacrifice al¬ 
together, and accepted, in its stead, an offering of fruit; 
but in the selfish spirit of a Shylock, He determined to 
be satisfied with nothing less than the life blood of the 
only child—the loved—the beautiful—the accomplished 
daughter of the great Judge of Israel. 

The Jews were a “Holypeople” too holy to eat any¬ 
thing that died of itself; but they were not too holy to 
“give it unto the stranger that was within their gates, 
that he might eat itnor yet too holy to “sell it unto an 
alien ” for the same purpose. What would we do, or what 
should be done with “holy men ” who would dare to prac¬ 
tice such morals now ? “ David was a man after God’s 

own heart.” Yet all, or nearly all the great features of 
his life exhibit him as a man of cruelty and blood. He 
committed adultery with the wife of Uriah, and then with 
the coolest and crudest treachery betrayed unto death the 
•unsuspecting husband, his long tried valiant chieftain— 
his most faithful friend. But the Lord was displeased 
with this conduct of David ; and in order to properly pun¬ 
ish him for it, he only, in his infinite justice, deemed it 


20 


necessary to avenge the murder of Uriah by destroying 
the offspring of David’s adulterous amour—his first bom 
of the beautiful Betbsheba. This is the Bible-way of 
discouraging the meanest and most detestable form of 
murder that ever disgraced human nature, David’s pun¬ 
ishment was not capital, but vicarious in its operation. 
David was a great king. He was, perhaps a little vain 
of his power. So he wanted to know the number of his 
men. In a little time he had them all counted—not a 
very grievous offence, one would suppose; but his God 
was even more angry with him than when he murdered 
Uriah. He gave him the choice of three evils ; very ter¬ 
rible and destructive evils, to his innocent people; but 
not one of which affected him directly or personally. 
Without the least apparent concern or regard for the 
welfare of his unoffending people, he chose that which he 
supposed would be the least disagreeable or unjurious to 
himself. Then the Lord, in the unimpeachable “justice 
of Ms judgment ,” in order to punish David for number¬ 
ing his men, slew seventy thousand of the innocent men 
numbered. This is, indeed, a fine moral example to set 
before the rulers of modern times. With such a shiuing 
light to follow, it is no wonder we have have so many 
Christian tyrants to rule over the nations. 

Still, there can be no doubt that David was a man after 
God’s own heart; for he was just as merciless as the 
great Jewish God whom he loved and served- How did 
he treat Ins prisoners of war ! Here is what the Bible 
says: “He put them under saws and under harrows of 
iron, and under axes of iron, and made them pass through 
the brick kiln. And thus he did unto all the cities of the 
children of Ammon.” This looks as if it might bo the 
original type or model of the Bomish Church inquisition. 
Perhaps the modes of torture in the Spanish branch of 
that institution were slight improvements on those of Da¬ 
vid. Still it is very certain that he has not been much 
surpassed in inventive cruelty, by the most ingenious In¬ 
quisition. One can scarcely help imagining how David 
would have enjoyed the luxury of torturing heretics, could 
he have lived and been King, Pope or Grand Inquisitor, 
in the days of that holy Institute for converting heretics 
by torture; over which the great Mother Church presi¬ 
ded so long and so well. Surely, if in this great Mother 


21 


Church, he did not occupy the Papal Chair, he could not 
liave been less than Grand Inquisitor. With the help of 
modern science joined to his great natural talents, he 
could have had no compeer in the use of ingenious devices 
of cruelty. 

The “ Bible” tells us that Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and 
Solomon were the best and wisest of men. Yet they kept 
both wives and concubines. Solomon, so renowned for 
his wisdom, had seven hundred of the former and three 
hundred of the latter. Modern Christians who are ambi¬ 
tious to follow the example of the wise Solomon, only do 
so in the taking of concubines; not in the taking of many 
wives. While, on the other hand, the Mormon Saints fol¬ 
low their great example in the taking of many wives, but 
no concubines. Henry Ward Beecher is charged by Vic¬ 
toria C. Woodhull, with imitating, in a small way, this 
great exemplar of wisdom. But the “ Young Men's 
Christian Association ” of New York repel the charge, 
and affect to consider it as exceedingly disgraceful, if true. 
But what are we coming to ? If they had Solomon him¬ 
self in New York, he would fare no better at their hands 
than Victoria 0. Woodhull or Brigham Young. It is ev¬ 
ident they entirely ignore the great point in the case, that 
if it were right for wise and good men to have concubines 
in Palestine, it cannot be wrong for wise and good men, 
who love and admire David and Solomon, to have them 
in New York. But then, we must remember that the 
wisdom of Solomon was very different from the wisdom 
of the “Young Men’s Christian Association” of New 
York. They have become wiser than Solomon—wiser 
than even the Bible itself. They are more refined and 
delicate in their morals than either Solomon or the Bible. 
It is true, they continue to circulate the Bible in its pure 
and simple state, among the distant heathen acd other 
ignorant people, but only a very few choice portions of it 
do they now deem suitable to quote or read from the pul¬ 
pit. They not only refuse to use or give public utterance 
to those parts of the Bible which they do not like ; but 
they get angry and invoke the vengeance of the law on 
those unsanctified people who feel it their duty to do so. 
But we shall be told that we are not to look in the Old, 
but in the New Testament for a perfect example and 
guide. Jesus was indeed a great reformer. He was the 


22 


heretic or infidel of his time. He was to the Jews what 
Luther was to the Roman Catholic world. Like Luther, 
he abolished some useless forms and ceremonies, but he 
did nothing in favor of education—nothing that would 
help on the civilization of the world. All around him 
were the evils of Slavery and Intemperance, but he took 
no notice of them, and bore no direct testimony against 
them. His business on earth, seemed to be chiefly, to 
save the souls of men fiom eternal damnation. He had 
little care or concern for their bodies. It did not matter- 
much, if men did suffer, in this life, from poverty, oppres¬ 
sion or slavery. The suffering of the body was the surest 
means of saving the soul—our ideas of moral restitude, 
will not justify some things which he did. It is no wonder 
that the Gergesene u stock growers ” wanted him to leave 
their country, after he had permitted the cast-out devils 
to go into, and destroy their swine. 

Then, we are told that Jesus came to a fig tree; and 
11 finding no fruit thereon; as the time of figs was not yet ; n 
he immediately cursed and blasted it. Surely, the owner 
of the fig tree, however he might fear the author of such 
needless destruction, would not be very favorably impress¬ 
ed with his moral character; nor covld we blame him 
much, if he had desired his early departure. 

“ Take no thought for the morrow, of what ye shall eat 
or what ye shall drink, or where withal ye shall be cloth¬ 
ed,if fully, or even partially carried out, would make one 
great u poor house ” of the world. The few who do carry 
it out, are either supported by their friends or fiud their 
way into some charitable institution. Such a precept is 
at war with that care and industry, on which the world’s 
civilization is founded. The doctrine taught by Jesus r 
that men may live a whole life of wickedness, and yet be 
saved at the last hour, no one can fail to see, must operate 
as an encouragement to crime. Like the indulgences and 
pardonings of the Romish Church, it is a sort of charity¬ 
way, by which bad men can get iuto Heaven as readily as 
good ones. Who can tell how many thousands have been 
lured into the leading of Immoral lives, by this eleventh 
hour doctrine ? To console the murderer; as he stands 
on the gallows-scaffold, the Minister tells him, that through 
tho redeeming blood of Jesus his purified soul will ascend 
to Heaven, and there with the blessed Redeemer live for- 


23 


ever more, amid scenes of bliss and glory, such as u eye 
hath not seen,” nor the human heart imagined. This is 
the kind of consolation that Mr. Barker, as an infidel,, 
could not give to the dying sinner, good men do not need 
such consolidation. They have nothing to fear. It is en¬ 
couraging crime, thus to console bad ones. 

Having shown that the fruits of Christianity have been 
generally evil, and that its influence has tended rather to 
darken than enlighten the world; I will now endeavor to 
show that we have no right to expect better fruits from 
this Christian tree than those we have obtained. I shall 
proceed to show that both fruit and tree are, essentially, 
of the same evil character. 

The Christian system of Theology teaches the worship 
of God, as other systems of Theology teach the worship 
of idols —for the purpose of deprecating his vengeance. It 
is a selfish system, designed for the glory of God and hu¬ 
mility of man. God is represented as an omnipotent de¬ 
spot, who created millions of human beings for no other 
purpose, but, that he might drink in their flattery and 
homage forever. Or, if they withheld this servile adora¬ 
tion they had the alternative of eternal damnation—an 
eternity of misery, from which they would gladly escape 
into utter annihilation ; but which, “ in Ms infinite mercy” 
he denies them. It must, however, be confessed, that the 
favored few—the elect of his grace, who in return for their 
salvation, are doomed forever more, to stand before His 
throne and sing songs of glorification and worship, have 
scarcely a better time of it. They certainly deserve our 
warmest sympathy. The labor of Sisyphus, rolling up the 
hill, his ever returning stone, was but pleasaut pastime, in 
comparison. 

Even, admitting the Heaven of Christian Theology, to 
be in itself, desirable, it must, in many supposable cases, 
be centrary to any decent human nature. Can Heaven be 
Heaven to that parent who knows that his children are 
suffering the intensest torments of an everlasting hell? 
Before we could be happy, surrounded by such monstrous 
and appalling circumstances, it would be necessary to sup¬ 
press all the best affections of our nature. We must be¬ 
come demons—utterly selfish, without a thought of any 
one’s happiness but our own. The God of Christian Theo¬ 
logy is not presented to us, in a loveable and attractive 


24 


form. We worship him through fear of punishment—as 
the Indian worships the devil,—not for love, but for fear 
of the injury he may do us, if we do not. Under the name 
of Providence, we are continually charging God with all 
manner of evil visitations, without ever suspecting, that 
we are, in the least degree damaging his reputation The 
great unavoidable evils of life, are all of the Lord. Plague, 
Shipwreck, Famine and Frost-blight, are all the result of 
his will and power. We know that he.could prevent them 
if he would; but we do not like, even to hint that it is his 
duty to do so, lest our impeachment of his wisdom might 
be considered impertinent, and call down further venge¬ 
ance on our heads. We refuse to look into the nature of 
evils for their remedies. But make ourselves easy with 
the consoling assurance that God, in his infinite wisdom 
and mercy can never do wrong. 

But with the exception of, now and then, a crowned 
head, wielding vast and despotic power, we are not so 
charitable toward our fellow man. Were he to inflict on 
us such evil, there would, surely, be for him, no worship. 
Scarcely, on the gallows, would there be a sufficient ex¬ 
piation for such crime. We would exterminate him as an 
enemy to the race. An act that is bad in a man can not 
be good in a God. If a parent had unlimited power and 
were to suffer his children to peaish in war with each oth¬ 
er ; or if he permitted them to die for want of food, we 
would justly hold him accountable for the commission of a 
great crime against nature. But when God suffers count¬ 
less millions of his children to be destroyed, and countless 
other millions, to become miserable, we only tell him, in a 
flattering, fawning way, how just and merciful he is, with 
the hope that in future, he will thus be persuaded to do 
better for us. 

Jesus is said to be the meditator ” between us and God. 
We are told that he is constantly interceding with God for 
our salvation. Yet he resists, even the earnest entreaty 
of his “ beloved son” to exert his power in our favor and 
save us from the devil. It is true, he condescends to save 
a very few, but only for his Son’s sake. He would not save 
a single soul, if his own individual pleasure were alone con¬ 
sulted. The few he saves, he saves not out of kindness to 
them, but only to please his Son. For his own part, he 
would rather seen them all suffering the tortures of eternal 


25 


fire, in that hell which he has prepared for them and the 
devil. Even Jesus, when he came into the world, ostensi¬ 
bly to save sinners, was very sparing of his saving power. 
He forgave sins and cast out devils, only in a few instances. 
But, if, as we are told, he came expressly to save the 
world, why did he not cast the devil out at once? Why 
did he not convert the world into that virtuous and bliss¬ 
ful Paradise, which God at first designed it ? Why did 
he not convert those unbelieving Jews, who, thronging 
around him at the Cross, asked so eager ly for his crucifix¬ 
ion ? Surely, the moral influence of such conversion, 
eould not have been less than that afterward, exerted by 
the conversion of that “chief of sinners,” “Saul of Tarsus.” 
Jesus taught meekness and forgiveness of iujurieson earth, 
where his enemies had the power in their own hands ; but 
in that unknown future state of existence, beyond this, 
our earthly life, where he assumed to have all the power 
of omnipotence, he threatened them with the vengeance 
of everlasting punishment. 

He waives judgment in the present life, but waits with 
cool malignity for that terrible retribution with which he 
inteuds to visit them hereafter. Man’s present happi¬ 
ness is almost entirely ignored. The more we suffer here, 
the more certain will we be of a joyous eternity of life 
in the world to come. We reverse the laws of Nature. 
We look upon the ills of life as blessings in disguise. 
Even life itself becomes an evil—an obstruction in the 
way to heaven Heath appears a blessing, and long life 
our greatest misfortune—it makes us wait too long for 
heaven. “We mourn not for the dead, but for the living.” 
We suppress reason and nature, but it is all for the glory 
of God. This is the great and all important considera¬ 
tion, selfish as it is. His followers soon catch the same 
selfish spirit. They do no good for the love of it, or be¬ 
cause it makes human life more happy; but merely in 
order that they may be saved from hell. Good deeds are 
not enjoined upon men because of their justice and inhe¬ 
rent loveliness, but because they will purchase salvation. 
Our present physical welfare is nothing. The salvation 
of the soul everything—the whole purpose of life. 

With such a theology as this it is no wonder that reli¬ 
gious zealots will bum the body in order to save the soul. 
It is no wonder that Christian rulers are so careless of the 


26 


physical welfare of tlieir people; believing as their reli¬ 
gion teaches, that the poorer they are in this world’s 
wealth the more sure will be their inheritance of the joys 
of heaven. The pious despot feels himself at ease ; his 
oppressed people are all going to heaven by that surest of 
all ways—poverty and suffering. He need not concern him¬ 
self for them. As it is almost impossible for a rich man to 
enter into the Kingdom of Heaven, he may, very properly 
turn his sympathies toward those who are enjoying the 
good things of this life—the wealthy and the powerful- - 
who can scarcely hope tor the joys of heaven. 

We *spend time in absurd forms of worship, which 
ought to be devoted to mental and physical education. 
We build churches wherein men’s minds become dark¬ 
ened and troubled about the necessarily unkuown future. 
We should use them for better purposes—the investiga¬ 
tion and discusion of our relations with the present living 
world around us. Let us make the present life good with 
good works, and there need be no fear for the future. 

In the expression of these views I do not mean to be 
understood as in favor of the destruction or the suppres¬ 
sion of all devotional feelings; but only to indicate a more 
rational direction and use of them. The best we can do 
is to worship our highest ideal of truth and good ; still 
striving with unceasing effort in the great life movement, 
to make it higher and higher. 

All that w r e can know or conceive of the grand, the 
good aud the beautiful in the wide universe of nature, 
will ever claim our warmest love, and excite our tenderest 
adoration. That we are naturally devotional, is no good 
reason why we should devote ourselves to the worship of 
’an unworthy, ignorant and wicked God. Let us cease to 
do so. Let us no longer choose the God of our worship 
blindly; but only in the,full sun-light blaze of reason and 
experience. 

When the great Christian Church has sufficient coufi- 
denco in its own principles to establish a free platform ; 
and when it not only does not fear, but invites the fullest 
and freest disccussion of those principles on that free plat¬ 
form ; then, loosed from the bonds of a false, despotic re¬ 
ligion, it will become a source of light and knowledge that 
e innot fail to bless the world, as it has never yet Ik en 
blessed. It would, indeed, be well for the w< rid, if the 


27 


Christian Church were thus tree, instead of being as now, 
the great Bastile of the human mind ; the greatest ex¬ 
tinguisher of reason,—the mightiest engine of darkness 
that the spirit of superstition has ever invented for the 
humiliation of man. 

J. WILLIAMS THORNE. 


NOTE.—The foregoing article was intended for publication in one 
or more papers of Chester county, but owing to its length it was 
deemed advisable to issue it in pamphlet form. 


28 


House of Representatives, 

Raleigh , Feb. 4 th, 1875. 

Mr. Moving , Chairman of the Committee on Privileges ancl 
and Elections :— 

Hear Sir :—I herewith present you with a circular, 
containing my latest public declaration of religious faith. 

As the only religious test in the Constitution of North 
Carolina is, that no person shall hold civil office, who shall 
deny the being of Almighty God. And as I do solemnly 
aver that I never made, and do not now make such a de¬ 
nial, may I not reasonably hope that this will be entirely 
satisfactory to your Committee, and, that I shall thus be 
saved the trouble of confirming it by a thousand witnesses 
in a distant State. 

Yours truly, 

J. WILLIAMS THORNE. 


In my defence, I submitted the following campaign cir¬ 
cular. It will explain itself : 

CITIENS OF WARREN COUNTY READ AND JUDGE 
FOR YOURSELVES. 

Ridgeway, N. C., May 27th, 1874. 

J. F. Hawkins , Esq., 

Dear Sir— I have just learned from Mr. Isaac F. Alston, 
that the letter from the Hon. Washington Townsend, Rep¬ 
resentative in Congress of the Chester and Delaware Dis¬ 
trict, Pa., is now in the hands of a friend in the River Dis¬ 
trict. This renders it impossible to get it in time for publi¬ 
cation in the present circular. 

I regret its omission; but regret it less, as it is known to 
be only a full corroboration, in every important particular , 
of the letter herewith given, from the Hon. E. W. Daily, 
representing Chester county in the Pennsylvania Legisla¬ 
ture. 

Please publish this note in the plhce of the “Townsend 
letter.” Yours truly, 

J. WILLIAMS THORNE. 

The following letter was written in reply to on ‘‘ Ed¬ 
itorial” notice of the ll Warrenton Gazette .” As it was re¬ 
fused admission into the columns of that paper, I take this 



29 


method of placing it before the people of Warren county. 
“Let justice be done and the heavens will not fall,” though, 
the Devil may, and ought to. In the language of the Apos¬ 
tle Paul—Prove all things and hold fast to that which is. 
good. 

Brodie Place, May 12th, 1874. 

Henry A. Foote , Esq., 

Dear Sir —When 1 first came to Warren county, about 
five years ago, I was informed by Mr. Henry B. Hunter, 
that he had full knowledge of all the people of any note or 
importance in it, and that there were not two of them all who 
did not hate falsehood worse than the pestilence. In all that 
fine culture and easy winning manner which mark and dis- 
tinguish the perfect Southern gentleman, there were, if 
possible, still fewer exceptions. I was, of course, delighted 
to hear so good an account of the people with whom I had 
elected to make my home. I was enraptured with visions, 
of a New Arcadia, brighter than the fabled one of old. I 
saw the dawn of another “ Golden Age” of innocence. It 
seemed that the “Ideal Republic” of Plato was about to be 
made real, and that Astrsea would again come down from, 
her bright place in the starry Heavens, and bless us with, 
an ever during reign of justice and peace. 

During all the five years I have been a citizen of Warren 
county, I have seen and heard nothing that could change 
the good opinion of its people. I have been warmly wel¬ 
comed by both Democrats and Republicans. It has not,, 
hitherto been necessary that 1 should agree, in a party 
sense, with my Democratic fellow citizens in order to secure 
their kindest consideration and respect. Under these cir¬ 
cumstances, I confess, I was not a little surprised when I 
read in the “ Warrenton Gazette'' your unfriendly and unjust 
notice of my remarks before the Republican Convention oF 
the 6th inst. Of course, as a true gentleman and lover of 
truth and fair play, you will be glad to have the opportunity 
of making the “amende honorable" by promptly publishing 
a correction of such of your statements as can be irrefraga- 
bly proved to be without the least shadow of foundation.. 
It was no doubt, through accident and a want of proper in¬ 
formation that you wrote as you did in regard to me. You,, 
surely, did not wish to sully the fair fame of a Warrenton 
gentleman by being ill-natured, unmannerly or unjust. 

You seem to object to my standing as a candidate for the 
office of State Senator. Why, you ask, did I not get office 
in Chester county, Pa., where I was raised? I can only an¬ 
swer that I heve never asked or sought for office either hem 


30 


or there. I simply consent to the wishes of those who know 
me best, that I should stand, (not run) for the office of State 
Senator. Should I be elected to so responsible and honora¬ 
ble an office, it shall be my steadfast endeavor to represent 
justly and impartially the whole people of Warren county 
without regard to race, color or condition. If I have the 
least knowledge of the constitution of my own mind 1 shall 
•set my face as a flint against all forms of fraud and corrup¬ 
tion, come from whatever source they may. 

To be the trusted agent of society in matters of high im¬ 
port, has always been deemed an honorable mark of confi¬ 
dence, and the man who betrays it, is justly considered the 
worst of traitors. In a true Republic, offices will not be 
greedily sought after, to subserve selfish purposes; but con¬ 
scientiously, as duties of citizenship. 

In regard to “Civil rights,” I said it was absurd to refuse 
colored students admission to our white schools and colleges 
when they already honorably occupy seats in our State and 
National hails of Legislation. In West Point, Oberlin, Lin¬ 
coln University and many other distinguished institutions 
of learning, the color of the student is no bar to his admis¬ 
sion. 

As to social rights they belong to the wide realms of 
taste, and are entirely outside of the law. It is not riding 
in the same carriage, sitting in the same Legislative hall or 
eating at the same table that makes social equality, any 
more than living in the same tofrn or county makes social 
equals of all the inhabitants. Some of the most refined and 
highly educated people in the country, are colored. We 
cannot afford to let the prejudice of color be a bar to social 
intercourse, any more than we can afford to permit the color 
of the hair to do the same thing. In England and on the 
Continent color of itself has nothing to do with an entrance 
into the best society. Some year or more ago, Gladstone, 
then Prime Minister of Great Britain, did equal honor to 
himself and country by inviting to breakfast with him, the 
“Colored Hampton Minstrels .” This, I suppose, you would 
say was “swallowing the negro but it does not seem to have 
disturbed Mr. Gladstone’s social position in the least. The 
truth is, if we fail or refuse to appreciate merit because 
found under a dark skin, it does and should lower our social 
position in the eyes of all good people. 

You charge me with saying that “ I think a man a fool 
who believes in a God.” No such sentiment ever passed 
my lips. On the contrary, no one can resist the evidence 
everywhere around, in the wide Universe, of an irresistible 


31 


power—an unknown and unknowable mysterious Infinite. 
You may call it God, or by a^y other name you please, but 
it is the quick spirit that sustains and gives life to all 
things. The same idea is so happily expressed in a passage 
of Pope’s Essay on Man that I cannot forbear transcribing it. 
“All are but parts of one stupendous whole 
Whose body Nature is and God the soul: 

That changed through all, and yet in all the same, 

Great in the earth as in the etherial frame; 

Warms in the sun, refreshes in the breeze, 

Glows in the stars, and blossoms in the trees; 

Lives through all life, extends through all extent, 

Spreads undivided, operates unspent; 

Breathes in our soul, informs our mortal part, 

As full as perfect in a hair as heart; 

As full as perfect, in vile man that mourns, 

As the rapt seraph that adores and burns: 

To him, no high, no low, ho great, no small; 

He fills, he bounds, connects and equals all.” 

But I am further charged “ with believing that man is a 
spontaneous production of the earth.” I believe in no such 
nonsense. But I do believe in the theory proposed by Mr. 
Darwin, of the origin of the species. This theory has been 
adopted by such master minds as Lyell, Wallace, Huxley, 
and indeed by all the great scientists ot the age. It is as 
well proved and unquestionable as Kepler’s three great laws 
of the solar system. No one, who has at all kept pace with 
the progress ot science can now doubt it. 

You report Mr. Alfred Christmas as asking me a few 
questions.” The whole audience will bear me witness that 
he put to me no questions of any kind on that day. Some 
one else questioned mein regard, to my 7 belief in a God. 
This I answered fully, and then retired quietly from the 
platform; there being no point of order taken, nor was 
there any confusion at that time. As to the reported state¬ 
ment of Mr. Alfred Christmas, that while he lived with me, 
a period of eighteen months, I invariably weighed out his 
rations one pound short, it is as “baseless as the fabric of a 
dream.” During the whole five years I have lived in War¬ 
ren county, I have neither weighed out rations to him nor 
any one else. From the very outset that business was del¬ 
egated to one or the other of my two sons. They, I believe, 
have performed the service justly, and to the entire satis¬ 
faction of all those concerned. Of this there is the most 
overwhelming testimony of the colored people themselves. 
The fact that Shocco township is almost unanimously in fa¬ 
vor of my nomination for the. office of State Senator, does 
not look as if I had been robbing the people of their ra¬ 
tions. 


32 


In my addreas at Wairenton I alluded to the corrupting* 
influence of alcoholic liquors, and advocated a total absti¬ 
nence from all that can intoxicate. Its use, even as a med¬ 
icine, or as a sacrament, was severely censured. Just as I 
was about leaving the platform, Mr. Hyman informed the 
audience that if 1 did not drink wine. I both made and sold 
it. This required explanation, which I promptly gave. It 
is true that 1 take the pure and unfermented juice of the 
scuppernong grape, and after subjecting it to the purifying 
process of a boiling heat, it is, while still at its highest tem¬ 
perature, put into bottles and sealed hermetically. In this 
state it will keep sweet like sealed fruit, for an indefinite pe¬ 
riod of time. It is used in Chester county, Pa., by the 
most ultra temperance people, for medicinal and sacramen¬ 
tal purposes. It is as utterly destitute of Alcohol as sealed 
fruit or the uncrushed grape itself. Could it be everywhere 
substituted for alcoholic wines, there would be achieved a 
great and blessed revolution in the health and morals of the 
world. 

One word in regard to the story about the bull. Let me 
advise you when next you want an amusing story, to look, 
into “Gullivers Travels,” “Baron Munchanson,” or the “Ara¬ 
bian Night’s Entertainment.” You will find plenty of them 
tar more entertaing and just as true. 

In closing, allow me to congratulate you on the great 
pleasure which, as a high minded Warrenton gentlemen,. 
I am sure you will feel, in having an opportunity to make 
honorable amends for your unjust and unfriendly notice of 
me in your last paper. 

Yours truly, 

■j. WILLIAMS THORNE. 

P. S. I have just been informed by the editor of the 
Wcirrenton Gazette, that Mr. Alfred Christmas will publish 
in the next number of that paper that I was in the habit of 
playing cards with him on Sunday and winning back the 
money which I had paid him on Saturday evening. I do 
not know how he can have the unblushing effrontery to 
make such a statement. I never played a game of cards in 
my life, either with him or with any one else. 1 am utterly 
ignorant of all the forms of card playing, and have no di - 
sire to be made wdser in that respect. I despise gambling 
in every shape it can assume. Betting, lotteries and stock 
gambling have ever had my most intense and steadfast ab¬ 
horrence. Afier the vice of drunkenness there is scarcely 
any other that has exerted such an evil influence on society* 
as gambling. 


33 


In conclusion, permit to say that I never could have con¬ 
descended to notice these vile slanders, were it not that 
they might come to the ears of some, who having little or 
no knowledge of me, might be misled by them. In my own 
neighborhood where I am well known, they can hurt none 
but the utterer. 

J. WILLIAMS THORNE. 

The following letters from the Hon Washington Town¬ 
send and the Hon. E. W. Baily; the first representing the 
Chester and Delaware district in the lower House of Con¬ 
gress; the other representing Chester county in the Penn¬ 
sylvania Legislature, will, I presume, be sufficient vouchers 
for my character in my native county: 

House of Representatives, 
Harrisburg , April 28 th, 1874. 

Mason Williams , 

Dear Sir —Allow me a stranger to you to say a word in 
behalf of my friend and co-laborer in the cause of Republi¬ 
can principles, for the last twenty-five years, J. Williams 
Thorne, who, I understand, has consented to allow his name 
to be used as a candidate for State Senator in the old North 
State. 

I have a personal knowledge of his early and continued 
efforts in behalf of the equal rights of all men , and must 
say that no truer man lived in the county of Chester, Pa., 
than J. Williams Thorne, and the freedman of the South 
who fails to give him his undivided support is unworthy 
the name of Republican. His election to the position will 
be hailed by his numerous friends in the North as a recog¬ 
nition of sterling worth, and, my word for it, no colored 
man will ever have cause to regret his action the day he 
issists in elevating him to the office of State Senator. 

Yours truly, 

E. W. BAILY. 

Devotion, when enlightened bj T reason and guided by 
conscience, is one of the most. refining and civilizing ele¬ 
ments of human character. Not so, when under the influ¬ 
ence of superstition and darkened by ignorance. It then 
becomes one of the fnightiest foes to human happiness, one 
of the greatest hindrances in the way of man’s progress, 
both in science and in morals, that the world has ever 
known. If we are just and kind to our fellow creatures, 
the God of our worship will be just and kind also. If we 
3 




34 

believe in the “Golden Rule,” we will worship a God whose 
character illustrates it. 

It has been charged by mv political opponents, that I do 
not believe in a God, aud that the devotional or religious 
element is wanting in my character. The following poems, 
written many years ago, will show better than anything I 
could now say, how much foundation there is for such a 
charge. J. WILLIAMS THORNE. 

A Paraphrase of a Sermon by Jesse' Kersey, an eminent Minister of 
the Society of Friends. 

Our Heavenly Father, kindly wise, 

Has spread before our sight, 

The loveliness of earth and skies, 

To claim our praise aright— 

That while our eyes with rapture see 
Each good and pleasant thing, 

Our tender gratitude may be 
An unfeigned offering. 

The blossomed shrubs that charm the grove— 

The streamlets flowing there, 

And song of wild birds as they rove 
In the soft vernal air— 

Were they not given to endear our hearts 
To him who reigns above ? 

Whose ever bountious hand imparts 
Such unasked gifts of love. 

Is not the earth with plenty filled ? 

Do not the fields overflow, 

And almost without culture yield, 

Whate’re the clime can grow ? 

And shall our stubborn hearts refuse 
The grateful jsong to raise ? 

And while each pleasant gift we use 
Neglect the giver’s praise ? 

Do not the gales that round us breathe 
Fresh fragrance as they rove— 

The flowers that careless blow beneath, 

And the blue Heavens above— 

The rivers as they ceaseless run, 

The restless Ocean’s flow— 

And the still burning quenchless sun, 

Their Heavenly Author show? 


35 


Do not the stars that shine so bright, 

In the deep wilds of space, 

Seem as the Maker’s guiding light, 

To our last resting place ? 

And while we in these orbs of fire, 

His holy hand descry, 

Do they not tender hopes inspire, 

Of immortality ? 

Then let us praise him and adore, 

In early youth’s fresh bloom— 

Nor cease till life's pulse beat no more, 

And the last summons come. 

Devotion’s fires so purely bright, 

Shall cheer our lives along— 

“And He who was our morning light, 

Shall be our evening song.” 

J. Williams Thorne. 


THE VENERABLE DEAD. 

Manibus date lilia plenis, 

Purpureos spargam flores— Virgil. 

Give lillies with full hands: 

Let us scatter purple flowers. 

If there be aught deriving birth, 

Not of the lowly things of earth, 

It is that consecrated zeal 

With which the pilgrim heart will kneel, 

And bless the long forsaken sod, 

Where once its holy idol trod; 

Or, where beneath the green turf lies, 
The sainted or the greatly wise, 

Will bow in homage at that shrine, 

And worship as a thing divine. 

When mingling with our kindred clay, 
Some dearest one has passed away, 

It wilt a tender joy impart, 

Half-solacing the grief-worn heart 
With its own deep devotion’s glow; 

Oft’ times in pilgrimage to go 

Where “dust to dust” beneath the shade 

By drooping elm and willow made, 

The worship’d idol form is laid 
"Upon love’s altar there to lay 
What may our kind remembrance say; 
Though in such season of the year, 

■Our footsteps be not wanting there, 



36 


Yet, chiefly in the Spring’s sweet time, 

When wild flowers brighten all the clime,. 

With lillies and the wild trees’ bloom, 

We’ll consecrate the lonely tomb. 

How thrills the heart, as all alone 
We stand by the sepulchral stone, 

Which tells the philosophic fame 
Of Newton’s, Bacon’s mighty name; 

„ Or, that which bears to future hour; 

The record of a Milton’s power, 

In wild imaginings to stray 
Where never muse had led the way; 

Or Shakspeare’s more than magic skill,, 

To sway the passisns at his will; 

We idolize the genious flame, 

That gave them everlasting fame, 

And venerate whate’er we know, 

Their touch made sacred long ago— 

Kiss tearfully the pillar stone, 

That tells those master spirits flown ; 

And if it be in the Spring’s bright hour r 
Scatter the fragrant lilly flower. 

And should we chance to linger by 
Where once they trod, and now they lie; 

Those conquerers of olden time, 

Or, in the Greek or Roman clime, 

We’ll yield the slender tribute due, 

And while the purple flowers we strew, 

Mingle our tears of sorrow too, 

That such high energy of soul, 

Attained not to its proper goal, 

To love and bless all human kind, 

And in return like blessing find. 

But let the greatly good receive 
All that the human heart can give 
Of veneration’s warmest glow, 

Though all the token we bestow 
May be with full hands on their tomb 
To scatter the wild roses bloom. 

J. W. Thorne. 


“THE SLEEP OF DEATH.” 

Consanguineus Lethi, Sopor. —Virgil. 

After life’s fitful fever he sleeps well. —Shakspeare. 

Let us look on doath calmly and wisely— 

Not with unmanly fears. ’Tis a sweet sleep 
That all, or soon or late, must slumber in. 



* 


37 


I lay me down beneath the flowers, 

A blue sky bending o’er me, 

Regretting not life’s finished hours, 

Nor aught of bliss they bore me. 

The summer winds, will they not bear 
Their sunny light clouds on ? 

And trees their flowers and verdure wear, 

As they have ever done ? 

Sweet harmonies of life and love 
Still charm the earth and air? 

As since the light with darkness strove, 

They have done everywhere. 

The rivers, restless as they go 
By cliff and wooded hill; 

As in time past shall they not flow 
In power and beauty still ? 

O’er me still spread the heavens sublime, 

Around the mighty deep— 

With slumberers of all by-gone time, 

Shall I not sweetly sleep ? 

J. Williams Thorns. 


In 1844 the Lyceum Association, of Ercildoun, Chester county, Pa., 
was expelled from the public school-house, where it had been accus¬ 
tomed to hold its meetings, on account of its liberal religious views. 
In 1845 the people built a new hall, “to caste, to sect, to color, un¬ 
confined.” At the dedication on the 1st of August, that year, the 
following dedicatory poem was read. The reader will readily see the 
•appropriateness of its publication just now. 

DEDICATION OF THE PEOPLE’S HALL AT ERCILDOUN. 

BY J. W. THORNE. 

In the wide universe of Nature’s works, 

In all that we behold around, above, 

We read a living language, not like that 
Ephemeral thing, the creature of a day, 

By man so called, but as the universe 
Enduringly immortal—a language 
That has ever been, and ever more must be, 

The one unchanging oracle to man, 

From its eternal fane there ever comes, 

In unambiguous tones—“Be free! Be free!” 

It comes on the wild winds that sweep the sky 
In the dark winter hours. In the free airs 
That in the summer morn kiss the free flowers, 

In all that mingled harmony of sonnds, 

That winds and waters make on every shore, 

All over the green earth. And the free voice, 

That makes a muse of every living thing, 



38 


That walks the earth or flutters in the sky, 

And the light elud? that in the summer eve, 

Linger so sweetly in the suns bright rays, 

Tell in their hues of beauty, man be free! 

The same sweet voice is whispered from the stars,. 

As all unthralled, they make eternal sheen 
In the dim sky of night, the mountain heights 
That reared amid the clouds with lightning voice,. 

Hold converse with the genius of the storm, 

And the wild restless ocean roll, tell back 
In th®ir sublimity the same free tones, 

From the free universe a voice comes forth — 

Let man be free! The people heard that voice, 

And builded this free hall. No pompous dome, 

Like some which men have reared to idol gods. 

Its unassuming walls were builded up. 

With n© sublimer aim than that of man, 

It hath no creed, nor rules by penal laws, 

But as the o’erarching temple of the sky, 

’Tis fre® to all ?he brotherhood of man. 

All fetterless her limbs, truth wages here 
Against her foes what war so’er she will, 

And error too is free, too weak to move, 

Much less to bear a chain where truth is free, 

If w® look into the.past and present world, 

Strangely commingled scenes of joy and woe, 

Or grieve, or gladden the beholding eye, 

Men do not live in peace and mutual love, 

Tho tender smile of innocence and joy, 

In human faces is not always seen, 

The breezes do not uniformly bear 

The breath of blooming health upon their wings 

The human form looks not sublimely forth, 

Graceful, erect and stately in its mein. 

The lingering life decay—intemperance brings 
Has made it but the mockery of man; 

And death’s dark impress on the cheek of youth 
Dims the bright roses Nature planted there, 

The grave even above the grave victorious seems, 

Plateas, Marathons and Waterloo’s, 

Are hallowed by the blood which they have drank. 

Th® most successful murderers of their race 
Are worshipped as its idols, while the poor, 

Houseless, hunger tempted ones, whose utmost skill 
Can compass but the murders of a few, 

Are murdered ignominiously in turn, 

The poor oppressed one’s sigh is ever breathed 
On every fragrant breath, that makes so sweet, 

The summer evening sky, and sorrow’s tears 
Are mingled with the dew dreps of the morn; 

Gemming the same sweet flowers, even friendship’s smile 
Is oftimes but a courtly robe that hides 
From public gaze the dark deceit beneath, 

The glittering bribe hypocrisy holds out, 

To lure to ruin those who trust its sheen, 


39 


Like to those flowers, that gorgeous blow themselves' 

In the pure air, the better to conceal 
The poisonous honey they secrete within. 

Oh! these are evils; and these could not be, 

Did man more clearly read in Nature’s book 
Her never swerving laws that govern all 
In harmony with beauty and with bliss, 

But slavery is a cloud that comes.between 
And blots the book of Nature from our view, 

Till the sweet language of the universe 
Is as a stranger .tongue—chief source of ill, 

For o’er the mind its darkening shade it flings, 

Diming its truth ward fires. The starlit sky 
Looks ever lovingly on the charmed soul 
And covers it with beauty, but no voice 
Of answering love arises to that sky. 

That all might more and more familiar grow 

With that instructive page—the open book 

Of univertal nature, this free hall 

Was reared with the warm wish and youthful hope 

That Truth’s unfettered power might soon dispel 

The slavery clouds that come before our eyes, 

Eclipsing the pure light that ever more 
Goes sweetly forth from nature’s holy fane. 

But there are other halls, the same free sky 
Looks lovingly upon them as on this, 

And the free airs that flutter in that sky, 

In the same free-toned voice commune with them, 

And holy men they say assemble oft— 

Within their walls to worship a holy God. 

Why was this builded here? Call up the dead, 

Those martyred ones from out their grass grown graves, 
All over the green earth, whose blood was shed 
For daring to be free. Oh! bid them tell. 

The living dead why was this builded here ? 

May we not warmly hope that yet these walls 
In no far future hour, will echo back 
To the free universe its own free voice, 

In one sweet union strain, one joyous song, 

Of all mankind—the world—the world is free! 


Tuesday, P. M.j February 9tb, 1875. 

The Committee on Privileges and Elections met for the 
investigation of the charge against J. Williams Thorne. 

A pamphlet marked A, offered as evidence and admit¬ 
ted as true by Thorne. 

Mr. Thorne offered himself as a witness and made his 
affirmation as follows : (refusing to uplift his hand.) 

He offers a circular addressed to citizens of Warren Co., 
(marked B,) as embodying his views as to the existence of 

God. 



40 


I do not deny the existence of a God, but acknowledge it. 

I belong to the Society of “Progressive Friends ,” am 
trustee of their Church property, and I hold their religious 
views. 

Question by on« of the Committee. Do you believe in 
the Bible entire, as the revelation of God ? Answer. I 
<do not believe in it entire, but I do so largely. Question 
by Chairman, Do you believe in the God of the Bible T 
Answer. I believe in a Supreme, self-existent God, who 
is doubtless the God mentioned in the Bible, but I do not 
believe in many of the characteristics ascribed to him. 
(Question by Mr. Norment,) Did you ever deny the exist¬ 
ence of a God ? Answer. If I ever have, directly or by 
implication, I hereby solemnly repudiate such sentiment. 
Affirmed and subscribed. 

J. WILLIAMS THORNE. 

Annie Pusey, witness for J. Williams Thorpe, affirms 
as follows: I have known J. Williams Thorne for thirty 
years or more. Haved lived in his family most of the time. 
Have never heard him deny the existence of a God. Have 
heard him say that he believed in a Supreme Ruler of the 
Universe. He has belonged to the Society of Progressive 
Friends for more than twenty years, which is a religious 
society. ANNIE PUSEY. 

Lizzie Walton affirmed as follows: Have known J. Wil¬ 
liams Thorne, intimately for more than a year past. By 
reputation, all my life. Have never heard him deny the 
existence of a Supreme Being—but have heard him assert 
it. He belongs to the Society of Progressive Friends, 
which is a religious society, and is a trustee of the prop¬ 
erty of said society. L. T. WALTON. 

B. H. Lippincott, introduced by J. Williams Thorne, 
affirms and says: I have known J. Williams Thorne nine 
or ten years. Have never heard him deny the existence 
of a God. Have heard him assert his belief in the exist¬ 
ence of a God. He is a member of the Society of Progres¬ 
sive Friends, B. H. LIPPINCOTT. 

Mr. Thorne re-called. Question—Do you believe in a 
state of future rewards and punishments ? Answer. As I 
understand it, I do. That is, punishment always follows 
crime, either here or hereafter. Question, Do you believe 


41 


in Almighty God? Answer. I do as firmly as I believe in 
my own existence or that of the Universe. 

J. WILLIAMS THOBNE. 

The Committee on Privileges and Elections to whom 
was referred House Bill 116, requiring this Committee to 
euquire into the right of J. Williams Thorne, of Warren 
County, to a seat in this House have taken such testi¬ 
mony as they could get, and report the same to the House, 
and ask to be discharged from the further consideration of 
the matter. MOPING, Chairman. 

On Tuesday, Feb. 23d, at 12 o’clock, I addressed the 
House in my defence, as follows : 

Mu. Speaker: —I feel a delicacy in addressing this 
House in my own behalf. Still, as St. Paul said on a 
somewhat similar occasion, I thank you for the opportu¬ 
nity. I do not know whether, like St. Paul, I shall pass 
the ordeal of trial successfully, but I think lean say, that, 
like St. Paul, I have the advantage iu my defence, of hav¬ 
ing a just cause not difficult to defend. “ ’Tis only in the 
gods, we are told, to grant success, but to deserve it is a 
greater merit than success itself,” Lord Coke once said 
thatffie who is his own Attorney has a fool for his client. 
That proposition may, as a general rule, be true. But in 
my case the proof is so clear, that I am not, and never 
was an Atheist, that I think I can safely run the risk of 
being my own attorney. Overwhelmed and surrounded 
as I am, by my political opponents, I feel a little as Daniel 
may be supposed to have felt, when cast into the den of 
lions. But, as in the case of Daniel, trusting in the jus¬ 
tice of my cause, I have no fear that the magnanimous 
lions will either bite or tear me. Indeed, dropping the 
figure, I do not know that I ought to use the word mag¬ 
nanimous. Standing, as I do, before my judges, the mem¬ 
bers of this House, with the most absolute proof that I 
never denied the existence of a God, I ask only for your 
justice. 

Mr. Speaker, I am fifty-eight years old. I was born a 
member of the Society of Friends. I now belong to the 
most liberal of the three divisions of that Society—the 
u Progressive Friends .” I presented to Mr. Moring, 
Chairman of your Committee, a letter from Isaac Men¬ 
denhall, a prominent member of the Society, affirming to 


42 


these facts before a Magistrate in Hamorton, Chester 
County, Pa. 

I have also, thirteen letters from prominent clergymen 
and laymen in Eastern Pennsylvania, proving that in my 
native State I never bore the reputation of being an Athe¬ 
ist. I could, if necessary, corroborate this testimony by 
ten thousand witnesses from my native county of Chester. 
In regard to the “ Barker v pamphlet, read before the 
House on last Saturday, it not only does not deny the ex- 
tence of a God, but in several places expressly recognises 
him. But the question has been raised here, in regard to 
what kind of a God the Constitution of North Carolina re¬ 
quires me not to deny. It has been asserted on this floor, 
that the God of the Constitution can be no other than the 
God of the Bfble. But the Bible itself has no standard 
idea of God. Indeed, the God of the Bibie is presented 
in its pages in almost infinite varieties of character. These 
variations of the God-idea, extend from Anthropomor¬ 
phism all the way to Pantheism. This io equally true of 
the different Christian sects. They have as many differ¬ 
ent ideas of God as we find in the Bible. How then shall 
we be able to determine which of the many Bible charac¬ 
terizations of God is the one recognised in the Constitu¬ 
tion of North Carolina? The truth is, the framers of the 
Constitution had no reference whatever, to any of the 
Bible characterizations of God, or they would not have 
left out that portion of the religious test in the old Con¬ 
stitution which requires a belief in the divine authority of 
both the Old and New Testament. The state of the case 
seems to be this: In the present Constitution we cannot 
deny the Being of Almighty God, without disqualification 
for holding civil office ; but we may deny any or all of the 
characterizations of Him, as found in the Bible, without 
such disqualification. In the old Constitution, Jews were 
excluded from holding civil office, because they denied the 
divine authority of the New Testament. And the Con¬ 
stitution in force from 1770 until 1835, excluded Catholics 
from holding civil office because they did not believe in 
the Protestant religion. We may see in this how the 
public mind has gradually advanced in liberality, until the 
religious testis at last narrowed down to one single point, 
a belief in the Being of Almighty God. 

It was owing to the' labors of those great statesmen 


43 


Macon, Gaston, Bryan and Bayner, chiefly, that Catholic 
disability was swept from the Constitution of 1835. It 
was the darling hope and wish of those enlightened men 
that every one ot these disgraceful, Inquisitorial religious 
tests should, as soon as may be, disappear from that sacred 
instrument. It cannot be, and I will not believe, that a 
State, once so fruitful in the growth of free minded men, 
is barren of them now. Those suns of enlightened states¬ 
manship have set ; but it is in the eternal progress of 
things that other suns shall arise as bright as they, and 
dispel the last vestige of superstitious darkness from our 
political sky. 

All the churches, Evangelical and Liberal, differ widely 
in their characterization of God. All differ as to the teach¬ 
ings and true meaning of various portions of the Bible. The 
God of the Calvinistic Presbyterian differs as much from 
the God of the Universalist as from the God of Moham¬ 
med. How then shall we determine which of the various 
characterizations is in accordance with the God of the 
Constitution ? If we attempt the stupendous task of de¬ 
fining the idea of God as conceived by all the various re¬ 
ligious faiths, we shall have to institute a great Inquisito¬ 
rial Court for every General Assembly, to sit and give 
judgment on the religious qualification of its members. 
But this is absurd, and would lead to a worse state of 
things, a worse condition of religious despotism than that 
which made Galileo and Buffon deny the truth of their 
great discoveries in science. 

The Constitution does not require me to define my idea 
of God. It simply says I shall not deny his existence. 
The Hindoo worshipper of bishnu, the North American 
Indian who believes in the Great Spirit, and the Mahom- 
medan and Jew who believe in one only God and deny the 
divinity of Jesus, could all, in accordance with the spirit 
and letter of the Constitution, hold office in this State. 
There were many instances in the history of the settlement 
of this country in which the wild Indian worshipper of the 
Great Spirit snowed a nicer sense of justice than the high¬ 
ly civilized believer in the whole Bible. In proof of this, 
I cannot forbear reciting a splendid specimen of Indian el¬ 
oquence as related by Lord Erskine : “Who is it,” said 
the jealous lord of the Western forest, ‘‘encroached upon 
by the restless foot of English adventure; who is it that 


44 


causes this* river to rise in the high mountains and to 
empty itself again in the ocean ? Who is it that causes 
to blow the loud winds of Winter and calms them again 
in Summer t The same Being who gave to you a habita¬ 
tion on the other side of the great waters and gave ours 
to us, and by this title we will defend it.” Wm. Penn, in 
his settlement of Pennsylvania, applied the Golden Rule 
in his dealings with the Indians, and in return, found those 
simple worshippers of the Great Spirit more just and kind 
than the civilized persecuting believers iu the whole Bible, 
who had driven him and his Friends into the wilderness. 

This continent has never given birth to a statesman who 
has done so much for the establishment of civil and reli¬ 
gious liberty as Thomas Jefferson. It was through his 
influence more than that of any other man that there is 
no religious test in the Constitution of the United States. 
Be did not forget his native State, but is the author of 
‘‘an act for establishing Religious Freedom,” passed in the 
Assembly of Virginia in the beginning of the year 1786. 
I hope before the close of this trial to have it read to the 
House. It is one of the best and most irrefragable argu¬ 
ments ever produced in favor of the most entire mental 
and religious freedom. It deserves and will stand side by 
side in immortality with his immortal Declaration of In¬ 
dependence. He wanted no other epitaph on his tomb 
except the simple statement that he was the author of 
those two great charters of human liberty. 

When the Barker pamphlet was read on Saturday, it 
was denounced by members of this House as a most infa¬ 
mous production. I have only to say in reply that I am 
an earnest seeker after truth, and stand ready and willing 
to be convinced of the falsehood and infamy of any of its 
statements. I do not cling to error for the love of it; 
but will be glad to have the opportunity to discuss the 
merits of the offensive pamphlet at any suitable time and 
place. In the language of the great Milton—“Let Truth 
and Falsehood grapple. Whoever knew Truth put to the 
worse in a free and open encounter.” Between the old 
and the new, the past and the imminent future, just 
struggling for existence, there ever has been and ever 
must be a ceaseless contest. 

“New occasions teach new duties, 

Time makes ancient good uncouth, 

He must upward still and onward, 

Who would keep abreast of Truth.” 


45 


It is well for human nature that it is so. But the 
struggle should be a kindly one, not persecuting and 
deadly. If what I have said in the Barker pamphlet in 
regnal to the influence of Christianity in the dark ages be 
offensive to sensitive Christian ears, allow me to say, that 
the view I have taken of that dark period of human his¬ 
tory is sustained by Hallam in his history of the Middle 
Ages, by Gibbon in his Decline and Fall of the Roman 
Empire, and especially by Buckle, iu his history of Civili¬ 
zation. 

I might occupy your precious time much longer, but I 
will not now. I am willing to rest my case here, hoping 
to have an opportunity to reply when the argument against 
me is concluded. 

On Tuesday evening, at 7-J o’clock, the House again 
met, sitting as an Ecleaiastical Court on my case. 

I offered the first clause of the thirty-nine Articles of 
the Church of England, as a declaration of belief in God 
which I was willing to accept as my own: 

“ There is but one living and true God; everlastings 
without body, parts or passions; of infinite power, wisdom 
and goodness; the maker of all things visible and in¬ 
visible.” 

The Clerk having read this, I addressed the House as* 
follows: 

Mr. Speaker :—I do not know that I can make a more 
explicit statement of my belief in God than the one just 
rea l by the Clerk. The greatest theologians have told ua 
that God is incomprehensible. I shall not, therefore, be 
expected to define more closely the undefinable. “ I am 
that I am,” is a simple but sublime expression of the in¬ 
comprehensible God. Like unto this, and expressing the 
same mystic incomprehensibility of the God-idea, is the 
inscription on the temple of Isis: “lam that which was* 
which is and ever will be. My vail has never been raised.” 
We nflght as w r ell attempt to define infinitude of space 
and infinitude of time, as to attempt to fix the idea of an 
infinite God. Whenever we do attempt to define him, we 
are sure to degrade him by mingling with his infinitude of 
power the weaknesses and passions of human nature. All 
the religious sects have done this, more or less; and then 
persecuted one another unto death on account of their 
own antagonistic human characterizations. Look at the 


46 


Lambeth articles, predestinating some to everlasting mis¬ 
ery and others to eternal happiness, without regard to any 
merit or demerit, or power in either to alter their destiny. 
It is because the Evangelical Churches teach, for the most 
part, an unreasonable faith in unreasonable dogmas, that 
they have so little practical moral influence over the minds 
of men. The ‘‘Barker” pamphlet was written to arouse 
the churches to the necessity of preaching a more human¬ 
itarian religion. 

At this point I was interrupted by the question: Do 
you believe in the immortality of the soul ? 

In answer I will say, that I do not deny, and never have 
denied, the soul’s immortality • but, on the other hand, I 
am not absolutely sure of it. The wisest and best of men 
have had their doubts in regard to the unknown future of 
the soul. I am willing to hope for its immortality. In 
the old Testament it is not a recognized doctrine, except, 
perhaps, in the Book of Job The philosopher, Plato, 
believed in it. 

There are about six or eight millions of spiritualists 
who say they can and will, in a short time, demonstrate the 
existence of disembodied souls. I shall be glad to see and 
make their acquaintance. 

I was then asked: Do you believe in a future state of 
rewards and punishments? I believe that punishment al¬ 
ways follows crime, both here and hereafter. In whatever 
phase of existence we may find ourselves, we cannot escape 
moral responsibility. Under all circumstances good brings 
happiness and evil misery. 

The next question was by Mr. Walker: ‘‘Where is 
Hell ?” I answer that I really do not know; and not 
knowing myself, I looked into Buck’s Theological Diction¬ 
ary to see if he could tell me ; but I found he did not know. 
So gentlemen, you are at liberty to locate the disagreeable 
thing in any place, you may judge most convenient to have 
it. Milton says, the ‘‘ Devil bears Hell within and r^und 
about him.” I suppose all other wicked personages or 
spiritual entities do the same. If it be true that the King¬ 
dom of Heaven is within you, unless ye be reprobates, it 
must be equally true that the Kingdom of Hell is in those 
of an opposite character. 

Here, the colloquial debated ended. 


47 


Mr. Speaker : — I have but a few words more to say, 
when with the utmost confidence in the justice of my 
judges, I will rest my case in their hands. I know you 
will agree with me that the Great God of the Universe 
needs no defence from you or from me. The strength of 
our weak and puny hands would be as nothing when 
weighed against an infinitude of power. Surely Omnipo¬ 
tence has not delegated his weak creature man to assist 
him in punishing his enemies. Surely God has no attrib¬ 
ute that will justify an interference of any of his children 
with the conscience or religion of his brother. In the 
words of a great poet:— 

“Let not this weak, unknowing hand 
Presume thy bolts to throw, 

Nor deal damnation arovnd the land, 

On each I judge thy foe.” 

Said the great Jefferson :—“Error may be safely toler¬ 
ated if truth is left free to combat it.” Indeed it is only 
where Truth is tied hand and foot, that error reigns. 
Even in that fettered condition she often gets the better 
of a lie. For all history vindicates Bryant’s immortal 
words:— 

“Truth crushed to earth will rise again, 

The eternal years of God are hers ; 

But Error wounded, writhes in pain, 

And dies amid her worshippers.” 

Thanking you, gentlemen, for your patient attention, 
I submit myself with confidence to your just judgment. 

On Wednesday evening, Feb. 24th, at 7J o’clock, the 
great Eclesiastical Court again assembled. 

By the advice of my friends, I abstained from making 
any speech in my defence that evening. Before the trial 
closed, however, I was satisfied that it would have been 
better for me to have spoken in my defence. For in the 
language of the News reporter, several young baristers 
made furious attacks on the unbeliever.” Two or three 
times I interrupted them, Mr. Staples having stated that 
he who denied any portion ot the Bible necessarily denied 
the existence of God. I called on him to answer if he 
meant to say that the Jews and Martin Luther were un¬ 
believers in God ? The first denying the whole New Tes¬ 
tament, and the second two books of it. 

While on the floor I took occasion to say that there was 
no relation whatever between a belief in God and a belief 


48 


in the Bible. All the world believed in a God. ISTot a 
forth of them in the Bible, In illustration I recited the 
first and last stangas of Pope’s Universal prayer. 

Father of all, in every age, 

In every clime adored; 

By saint, by savage, and by sage, 

Jehovah, Jove or Loid, 

* * * * 

To Thee whose Temple is all space, 

Whose Altars, Earth, Seas, Skies, 

One chorus let all beings raisa, 

All Nature’s Incense rise. 

This, I insisted, was the Universal God-Idea, recognized 
by all nations and all religions of the Earth. 

In the course of the debate, Mr. Walker, in his earnest 
and excited speech against me, fell without mercy, in the 
little formula of my belief in God, offered to the “House” 
the night before. After he had thoroughly committed him¬ 
self, I interrupted him with the information that he was 
attacking the first clause of the first of the thirty-nine ar¬ 
ticle of the Church of England. 

Do you mean, I asked, to advocate the expulsion of 
members of the Church of England from seats on this 
floor ? 

Such was the religious excitement against me, that 
night, that I do not think the recantation of the wicked 4 
opinions of the odious pamphlet, nor yet the joining of 
an evangelical church, would have saved me. I never be¬ 
fore felt so livingly the priceless value of the great exam¬ 
ple of those martyred ones of bygone times, whose blood 
was shed for daring to be free. I realized, as never before, 
that it was their firmness in resisting religious despotism, 
even unto bonds and death, that achieved for us so much 
of mental freedom, as made it only a seat in the “ House 
of Representatives,” and not my life that was at stake. 

The following paragraph in regard Mo me and my pam¬ 
phlet, taken from the “ Daily News,” the leading Demo- 
craiic paper in Raleigh, will show that during the memo¬ 
rable week af the great Eclesiastical Court sessions, the 
spirit of persecution ran so high that nothing but the law 
prevented the lighting up, in Raleigh, of such fires as were 
once lighted up in Smithfield: 

“In Demand.— The demand for Thorne’s pamphlets 
exceeds even that of hot cakes for breakfast. 4 Where 


49 


can I get one of those pamphlets V is the question pro¬ 
pounded to us from one end of Fayetteville street to the 
other. We are pleased, however, to state that only 
twenty-five have been thrown on this market, and some 
one should hunt those up and cremate them. If the works 
of Tom Paine and Voltaire are dangerous reading, then is 
Thorne’s pamphlet the more. The bad names of these 
infamous authors live only in history, while Thorne, more 
infamous, still, here in our midst, and a member of the 
General Assembly of North Carolina, the acknowledged 
leader of 2,500 ignorant Warren county negroes, may 
wield some influence, pernicious though it be. For the 
sake of our young men and boys, as well as those mis¬ 
guided negroes that sent him her#, the whole edition of 
the pamphlet ought to be seized and used as fuel to cre¬ 
mate the author.” 

Indeed, the whole course of the Evangelical Ecclesiasti¬ 
cal Court was a complete and demonstrative proof of the 
charges made in the “Barker” pamphlet against the 
evangelical churches. If they had faith in the truth of 
the Bible teachings, they would come forward and show 
the falsity of those charges, instead of denouncing and 
persecuting their author. If I should charge an innocent 
man with the commission of an infamous crime, he would 
sue me for libel and prove his innocence. It would not 
satisfy him merely to call me hard names. 

It is an understood and admitted fact among the most 
orthodox theologians, that all evangelical believers have 
not equally refined and enlightened ideas of Deity. The 
ignorant and gross man will create a God for himself, after 
his own image. The man of exalted culture and good¬ 
ness will conceive and worship a God of similar character¬ 
ization. From this it will be readily seen, thfct no man 
can dictate and determine the kind of God that will best 
suit the nature, the culture and condition of his brother. 
If, then, religion has any influence over the morals of men, 
it is a demonstrable fact that those people and those na¬ 
tions that are the most just and merciful, and do the most 
real good to their fellow-creatures, must have the highest 
and best, the most exalted, ideas of God and religion. 
“By their fruits y<* shall know them,” is just as true now 
as in the days when Jesus taught it in Galilee. If it be 
rue, as travellers affirm, that Mahometans are more honest 
4 


50 


and just than we are, then their ideal characterization of 
God must be higher and juster than ours. I do not see 
how we are to escape this logical conclusion if we admit 
that religion has any influence over the moral character 
of men. Any enforced idea of God must result in hy¬ 
pocrisy more injurious to morals than honest unbelief. 
The African’s worship of “ Mumbo Jumbo” is better for 
him than a more enlightened form of religion which he 
can neither understand nor accept. 

If the worship of his Mumbo Jumbo God makes the Af- 
, rioan more moral than the worship of the Jewish God 
makes us civilized Americans, it is difficult to see why, in 
accordance with the Constitution of North Carolina, a be¬ 
liever in the African deity should not be eligible to any civil 
office in the gift of the people. Macon and Gaston, in the 
Constitutional Convention of 1835, both took this view of 
the case, and sustained it by the most unanswerable argu¬ 
ment. It is egotistical bigotry of the very worst kind to 
dogmatically assume, that our own ideal of God is the only 
right or proper one for all mankind. The heathen, who, in 
tlieir blindness, bow down to idols of wood and stone, do not 
necessarily thereby deny the existence of the ever living 
God of the Universe. They worship them as symbols of 
the most High, just as the members of the great “Mother 
Church ” worship the cross in memory of Him who, for 
their sake, suffered on it an ignominious death. Buck, in 
his Theological Dictionary, a standard orthodox authority, 
speaks right out, and tells us “that it would be loss of 
time to refute those who suppose the God of Mahomet to 
be different from the true God, and only a fictitious deity 
or idol of his own creation.” 

The “Great Spirit” of the wild Indian of North America 
is as taue a recognition of the God of the Universe as the 
Jehovah of the Jews. The Persian worships the sun, not 
as a senseless idol, but as a glorious symbol of that Su¬ 
preme light and power, which sustains and rules by in* x- 
orable law, the universe of life around him. The i< eal 
conception of the God of boyhood is very different from 
that of matured manhood, yet both are ideals or inspira¬ 
tions of the same universal God. 

Genius, education and wealth are great powers; but 
they may be wielded, either for good or for evil. The na¬ 
tions reputed to be the most highly educated and civilized 


51 


are not always thejustest and best. It frequently hap¬ 
pens that “on the side of the oppressor there is power,” 
and that the poor have none to help or defend them. Then, 
the history, written by oppressive power of its own doings, 
is sure, to be delusory and unjust. When this nation held 
millions of slaves, history wrote of it as a great and free 
republic. The Evangelical religions of this sham re¬ 
public, walked hand in hand with the government in 
its oppression. They could see nothing wrong in slavery. 
They .were just as good as the government, not one step 
in advance of it, At length ‘‘justice, though, for a long 
time lame of foot,” overtook the nation and it was con¬ 
vulsed .with civil war. It paid the heavy penalty sure to be 
demanded sooner or later for all wrongs and oppressions. 

Why did not the popular religions of this Republic in¬ 
terpose ? Why did they not call it to a timely repentance 
and save it! It was only:necessary to do equal justice to all 
the people within its bounds, and there neither would nor 
could have been the bloody convulsion that did take place. 

The Evangelical churches have always been as a stumb¬ 
ling,block in the way of human progress and reform. The 
reason is plain. In their very structure they are a conser¬ 
vative despotism. They are founded on the model of the 
old Jewish Theocracy, which, as, Tally rand once wittily 
said; of Russia, was “a despotism tempered by assassina¬ 
tion.” In the Evangelical churches, there is neither jus¬ 
tice, free speech, nor even common sense. These great 
elemental powers of human freedom and happiness, are 
forced to lie prostrate under the heel of an ignorant, su¬ 
perstitious aud despotic: priesthood. They have ever re¬ 
fused to let truth and error have a fair grapple. So truth 
is ever bound in chains, and over her triumphant error 
reigns supreme amid the clouds aud darkness of her gloomy, 
^empire. 

Under these circumstances it will not appear strange 
that the battle for freedom and moral reform has always, 
to be fought outside of the Evangelical churches. They 
never raise a finger in behalf of any reform until victory 
has already declared in its favor. How could it be other¬ 
wise ? Look at the Lambeth articles adopted by the 
highest dignitaries of the; church in Queen Elizabeth’s 
reign ! How much more just aud sensible are they than 
the “Mumbo Jumbo ” theology of the coat t of Africa. Ia- 


52 


deed, I doubt if any barbarous or savage nation ever origi¬ 
nated so absurd and wicked an idea of God. That the 
reader may see and judge for himself, I give them as they^ 
appear in Buck’s Theological Dictionary : 

Lambeth Articles. The Lambeth articles were so called^, 
because drawn up at Lambeth palace, under the eye and 
with the assistance of archbishop Whit-gift, bishop Ban¬ 
croft, bishop Vaughan, and other eminent dignitaries of 
the Church. That the reader may judge how Calvinistic 
the clergy were under the reign of: queen Elizabeth, we 
shall here insert them. ‘‘1. God hath from eternity pre¬ 
destinated certain persons to life, and hath reprobated cer¬ 
tain persons unto death. 2. The moving or efficient cause 
of predestination unto life is not the foresight of faith, or 
of perseverance, or of good works, or of any thing that is 
in the persons predestinated; but the alone will of God’s 
good pleasure. 3. The predestinati are a pre-determined 
and certain number which can neither be lessened nor in¬ 
creased. 4. Such as are not predestinated to salvation 
shall inevitably be condemned on account of their sins. 5. 
The true, lively, and justifying faith, and the Spirit of God 
justifying, is not extinguished, doth not utterly fail, doth 
not vanish away in the elect, either finally or totally 6. 
A true believer, that is, one who is endued with justify¬ 
ing faith, is certified by the full assurance of faith that his 
sins are forgiven, and he shall be everlastingly saved by 
Christ. 7. Saving grace is not allowed, is not imparted, is 
not granted to all men, by which they may be saved, if 
they will. 8. No man is able to come to Christ, unless it 
be given him ; and unless the Father draw him ; and all 
men are not drawn by the Father, that they may come to 
his Son. 9. It is not in the will or power of every man to 
be saved.” 

With such a religion as this it is no wonder that Eng¬ 
land persecuted the dissenting sects and paid, but little re¬ 
gard to the welfare of her people in any part of her wide 
empire. It is no wonder that in later times, she did her 
best to subjugate her colonies in America, and ground In¬ 
dia to powder in order to gratify her thirst for power and 
her unappeasable avarice. 

We boast of our enlightened religion and civilization. 
Yet among the nations of the civilized world war never 
ceases. The peaceful Christians are now the most war— 


53 


waging people in the world. They have also been most 
•distinguished for enslaving, for oppressing and lor exter¬ 
minating the weaker races. 

Soon after the Puritans landed on Piymouth Bock, they 
commenced on exterminating war on the Indian tribes 
around, pleading the Israelitish invasion and extermination 
of the people of the promised land, as a full justification. 
The simple minded natives vanished as if a pestilene had 
overtaken them. 

The great Evangelical Christian nations have exerted 
their power, not to conserve or protect the weak and little 
ones, but to enslave or destroy them. When the statute 
books of New England were full of Blue laws, she was 
energetically engaged in carrying on the slave trade. 
When William Penn and his friends were on their way to 
America* the Governor of Massachusetts. Bay colony wrote 
to his agent in London,” to way-lay and seize ye heretics, 
Wm. Penn and his ungodly crew and carry them to Bar- 
badoes and sell them for rum and sugar. By which you 
will not only extend the glory of God, but make great 
gain for God’s people.” 

It is a remarkable circumstance, that among the rude 
.and simple nations of the earth, there is but little bigotry 
and persecution on account of different religious opinions. 
They have never gone deep enough into metaphysical 
nonsense to be able to dispute about transubstantiation, 
predestination, or the mystical Trinity. Travellers who 
bave explored the central portions of Africa report that 
the people are mild aud gentle in their manners, and 
almost entirely free from wars and religious persecutions. 
It is only on the coast, where they have been demoralized 
by the evangelical slave-traders who have furnished them 
with rum and incited them to war, in order to make slaves 
of the prisoners, that this is not strictly true. I do not 
know what kind of a God they worship, but if “ by their 
fruits ye shall know them,” be as just and sure a rule in 
determining the character of a God as it is of a man, then 
is their belief in God as sufficient a test for the holding of 
civil office in this State, as a belief in the God of Jewish 
characterization, which the House of Eepresentatives has 
resolved is the only true God, and the one recognized in 
the Constitution of North Carolina. 

If we look a very little way back into the history of our 


54 


State we shall readily see how much and in what way the 
evangelical tests in the Constitution have influenced the 
sound morals of her people. When her constitutional test 
for holding office was a belief in the divine authority of 
the Old and New Testaments, her “principles of sound 
morality ” permitted her to abrogate, at pleasure* the mar¬ 
riage and parental relationship ot her colored people. 
The same “principles of sound morality” permitted her 
white citizens to sell men and women in the marketplace. 
In accordance with the same “principles of sound mo¬ 
rality” they sometimes sold their own children in the per¬ 
sons of those of mixed blood. So that it is demonstrably 
true of North Carolina, as it is of New England and, in¬ 
deed, of all the other States, that in exact proportion as 
she became less evangelical in her religion, she became 
more free and humanitarian in her constitution and laws. 
As the Bible test vanished from the Constitution, slavery 
and all its enormities vanished with it. 

On the next day after my expulsion I was surprised to 
see the same members of the House who voted to unseat 
me on account of disbelief in certain portions of the Bible, 
vote to exclude the whole Bible Irorn the public schools^ 
If the Bible should be read by matured minds on account 
of the pure religion and good principles it inculcates, 
surely, for the same reason, it should be introduced into 
our public schools, that the tender minds of our children 
may have the benefit of its moral teachings. For my own 
part, I am emphatically in favor of its being read in all 
our schools, just as I am in favor of the reading of any 
other book of such general interest to the people. We 
ought not, and we cannot well afford to be ignorant of it. 
Let it be more thoroughly read, and it will be more justly 
appreciated. When read with that freedom of judgment 
with which we read other books, its reading, either in 
schools or elsewhere, cannot fail of beneficial results. It 
gives me pleasure to say here, that while I have criticised 
sharply some of its morality and some of its characteriza- 
tun-* of God, there are large portions of it which I read 
frequently and value highly. 

This exclusion of the Bible from the schools is certainly 
a worse infidelity than that with which I have been 
charged. I deny a small portion of it. My accusers give 
that strongest of all proofs, “ the unequivocal, authentic 
deed,” that they deny or dislike the whole book. 


oo 


But I have said enough to show that the real reason of 
ray expulsion was not a theological, but a political one. 

I have said enough to show, beyond the shadow of a doubt, 
that there was no constitutional reason for unseating me. 
It remains for me to do justice to those Democratic mem¬ 
bers who, in the face of so tremendous a prejudice, so 
fearlessly and so ably defended me. 

“ ’Tis only in the Gods to grant success ; 

They did more—they deserved it.” 

Mr. Piunix, of Davidson county, made an admirable 
legal and constitutional argument against my expulsion. 
Mr. Mendenhall, a Democratic “Friend,” from the 
Friends’ settlement in Guilford county, was both learned 
and able in my defence. Mr. Tate spoke earnestly against 
my expulsion. Mr. Glenn, our recalcitrant Republican, 
from Yadkin, made one of his most eloquent speeches in 
defence of religious liberty. Mr. Staples, as elsewhere, no¬ 
ticed, spoke in favor of expulsion. Messrs. Gudger and 
Walker, in the language of the “ News ,” “made furious 
attacks on the disbeliever.” They are young yet, both 
in years and Theology. By and by, they will take a 
soberer view of the case; and when they know me 
better, will see less to condemn. Major Foote s^oke 
and voted against me, “ He believed in every word of the 
Bible.” The story of Jonah and the Whale was true; and 
that of Lot and his daughters. u Sound morality .” (Please 
answer, Major.) Mr. Finger could not vote to expel me 
as an Atheist; but ultimately, voted against me on the 
charge of subverting the principles of sound morality. On 
the charge of denying the existence of a God, he made an 
effective speech in my defense. Mr. Moring, Chairman of 
the Committee, when he introduced the Barker Pamphlet 
to the “House” did me the honor, (and I thank him for 
it) to say that it was a very able production. But, if able, 
it was so, because its statements and arguments were un¬ 
answerable. Mr. Strong, an able Democratic lawyer in 
Raleigh, voted in my favor. Altogether, there were eight 
or ten Democrats who voted against my expulsion. 

On the Republican side, Mr Norment was able and per¬ 
sistent against the right of the House to expel me on ac¬ 
count of my religious opinions. Messrs. Moore, Lloyd, Bfe- 
wington, Crews and Good, all colored Republicans, made 
energetic speeches in my favor Of all the Republican mem¬ 
bers, only two, Mr. Trivett aud Mr.Candler, white, voted for 


56 


my expulsion. Next day a protest, signed by Mr. Norment 
and about a dozen other Republican members, was record¬ 
ed on the blouse Journal. 

In conclusion, if I have said anything needlessly offen¬ 
sive if I have inadvertently made any statement not in 
accordance with the fact; any argument that will not bear 
the severest scrutiny, it will give me sincere pleasure to 
make, in the promptest manner, such amends as truth 
and justice demand. I write in their cause, and shall 
never, knowingly, betray them. 

J. WILLIAMS THORNE. 

The following is the celebrated Virginia religious tolera¬ 
tion act, written by Thomas Jefferson, and referred to in 
my defence before the House: 

AN ACT for establishing Religious Freedom , 'passed in 

the Assembly of Virginia in the beginning of the year 

1786. 

Well aware that Almighty God had created the mind 
free ; that all attempts to influence it by temporal punish¬ 
ments or burdens, or by civil incapacitations, tend only to 
be get habits of hypocrisy and meanness, and are a depart¬ 
ure from the plan of the Holy Author of our religion, who 
being Lord both of body and mind yet chose not to propa¬ 
gate it by coercions on either, as was in his Almighty 
power to do; that the impious presumption of legislators 
and rulers, civil as well as ecclesiastical, who, being them¬ 
selves but fallible and uninspired men, have assumed do¬ 
minion over the faith of others, setting up their opinions 
and modes of thinking as only true and infallible, and as 
such endeavoring to impose them on others, hath estab¬ 
lished and maintained false religions over the greatest part 
of the world, and through all time; that to compel a man 
to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of 
opinions which he disbelieves, is sinful and tyrannical; 
that even the forcing him to support this or that teacher 
of his own religious persuasion, is depriving him of the 
comfortable liberty of.giving his contributions to the par¬ 
ticular pastor whose moral she would make his patera, and 
whose powers he feels most persuasive to righteousness, 
and is withdrawing from the ministry those temporal re¬ 
wards which, proceeding from an approbation of their per¬ 
sonal conduct, are an additional incitement to earnest and 


57 


unremitting labors for the instruction of mankind; that 
our civil rights have no dependance on our religious opin¬ 
ions, more than our opinions in physics or geometry; that 
therefore the proscribing any citizen as unworthy the pub¬ 
lic confidence by laying upon him an incapacity of being 
called to the offices of trust and emolument, unless he pro¬ 
fess or renounce this or that religious opinion, is depriving 
him injuriously of those privileges and advantages to 
which, in common with his fellow-citizens, he has a natu¬ 
ral right; that it tends also to corrupt the principles of 
that very religion it is meant to encourage, by bribing, 
with a monopoly of worldly honors and emoluments, those 
who will externally profess and conform to it; that though 
indeed those are criminal who do not withstand such 
temptation, yet neither are those innocent who lay the 
bait in their way ; that to suffer the civil magistrate to 
intrude his powers into the field of opinion, and to restrain 
the profession or propagation of principles, on the suppo¬ 
sition of their ill tendency, is a dangerous fallacy, which 
at once destroys all religious liberty, because he being of 
course judge of that tendency, will make his opinions the 
rule of judgment, and approve or condemn the sentiments 
of others only as they shall square with or differ from his 
own ; that it is time enough for the rightful purposes of 
civil government, for its officers to interfere when princi¬ 
ples break out into oyert acts agaiust peace and good or¬ 
der ; and finally, that truth is great and will prevail, if 
left to herself, that she is the proper and sufficient antago¬ 
nist to error, and has nothing to fear from the conflict, 
unless by human interposition disarmed of her natural 
weapons, free argument and debate, errors ceasing to be 
dangerous when it is permitted freely to contradict them. 

Be it therefore enacted by the General Assembly, That 
no man shall be compelled to frequent or support any re¬ 
ligious worship, place or miuistry whatsoever, nor shall 
be enforced, restrained, molested, or burthened in his body 
or goods, nor shall otherwise suffer on account of his re¬ 
ligious opinions or belief; but that all men shall be free 
to profess, and by arguments to maintain, their opinions 
in mntters of religion, and that the same shall in no wise 
diminish, enlarge or affect their civil capacities. 

And though we well know that this Assembly, elected 
by the people for the ordinary purposes of legislation only, 


58 


have no power to restrain the acts of succeeding Assem¬ 
blies constituted with the power equal to our own, and 
that therefore to declare this act irrevocable, would be of 
no effect in law, yet we are free to declare, and do declare, 
that the rights hereby asserted are of the natural rights of 
mankind, and that if any act shall be hereafter passed to 
repeal the present or to narrow its operation, such act 
will be an infringement of natural right. 

The following extracts are from the speeches of Macon 
and Gaston, referred to in my defence : 

Mr. Macon said, he took the broad ground that man 
was alone responsible to his Creator for his religious faith, 
and that no human power had any right to interpose in 
the matter, or to prescribe any particular opinions as a 
test of fitness for office. If a Hindoo were to come among 
us, and was fully'qualified to discharge the duties of any 
office to which he might aspire, his religious belief would 
not constitute an objection, in his opinion, why he should 
be debarred. Who made man a judge, that he should 
presume to interfere in the sacred rights of conscience! 
He had always thought that a mixture of politics and re¬ 
ligion was the very essence of hypocrisy. 

Mr. M. said, some gentlemen had expressed the opin¬ 
ion that this article, as it now stood, could do no harm. 
Who can tell to what the spirit of proscription, on which 
it is based, may lead. A spark may fire the world. Events 
push each other along, and one passion but serves to en- 
kiudle another. So far as he was individually concrued, 
it mattered not what provisions were incorporated in the 
Constitution. Iiis time had most come. But this Article 
was the only feature in the old Constitution which he had 
ever heard objected to, out of the State; and the objec¬ 
tion was always coupled with an expression of surprise, 
that it could have got a foothold in a State where the prin¬ 
ciples of liberty were so well understood. There were 
times, when a man, if a true patriot, must stake himself 
for the good of his country. The present was a crisis of 
that kind.— Macon. 

Divine truth needs not the support of human power, 
either to convince the understanding or to regulate the 
heart. Dare not to define divine truth, for it belongs not 


to your functions, and yfiir may set up falsehood and error 
in its stead. * * * * I shall not he con¬ 

tent with anything short of the total abrogation of all re¬ 
ligious tests.—G aston, 

The following letters and testimonials are a few of the 
many I have received from Chester County and parts ad¬ 
jacent, showing that in my native county, where best 
known, I never bore the reputation of being an Atheist. 
These letters were offered to the Committee and to the 
House, but were not read before either. 

J. WILLIAMS THORNE. 

Hamorton, Chester County, Pa. 
To Whom it may Concern: 

This is to certify that J. Williams Thorne, late of Ches¬ 
ter county, Pa., and now a citizen of North Carolina, is a 
member of the religious society of Progressive Friends, 
of Longwood, Chester county, also one of the trustees 
having in charge the property of said Society. 

ISAAC MENDENHALL, 

One of the trustees of said Society. 

Personally appeared before me, a Justice of the Peace* 
in and for the county of Chester, the above named Isaac 
Mendenhall, who being duly affirmed according to law, 
says that the above statement is true and correct. 

Affirmed and subscribed before me this third day of 
February, A. D. 1875. 

E. N. HARLAN, 

Justice of Peace, 
Hamorton, Chester Co., Pa. 

HOUSE OF REPRESETATIVTS, 
Washington, D. C., Feb. 3d, 1875. 

Dear Sir: Your favor of 1st inst. is received, in which 
you inform me that you are arraigned before the Commit¬ 
tee on Elections and Privileges to answer the charge made 
against you that you do not believe in the existence of a 
God, and requesting me to state what reputation you had 
in Chester County on that subject. 

I can only say that I have known you as a lecturer and 
debater on moral reforms for a dozen years perhaps. Your 


60 


reputation was that of a radical reformer, seeking to re¬ 
form the abuses and sufferings arising from War, Intem¬ 
perance, denial of female suffrage, and slavery, and anxious 
to promote the welfare of all men. 

I have no recollection of ever having heard you speak 
of the subject of the existence or non-existence of a God, 
neither have I ever heard it attributed to you that you 
denied the existence of a God. 

I have often had conversations with you, concerning 
moral reforms in which we did not always agree, but I 
never heard a sentiment escape your lips, which induced 
me to believe you were an Atheist. 

.Yfours Truly, 

W. TOWNSEND. 

J. Williams Thorne, Esq. 

P. S. I congratulate you on your election. In matters 
of legislation 1 am sure that your heart will be in the right 
place, wherever your judgment may be. 


Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, 
Senate Chamber, Harrisburg, Feb. 4th, 1875. 

To the Committee on Elections 

of the House of Representatives of N. Carolina , 
Gentlemen :—The undersigned members of the Sen¬ 
ate and House of .Representatives of Pennsylvania, hav¬ 
ing learned that the qualifications of J. Williams Thorne, 
formerly of Chester county, Pa., are questioned becauie 
of alleged Atheism, represent: That personally or by rep¬ 
utation, they have known the said Mi». Thorne for years; 
that they live in the vicinity of his former home; that in 
former years he was prominent in political and other dis¬ 
cussions, and that neither by word or act has he ever given 
ground for the allegation of Atheism, and that we believe 
him innocent of the charge. 


THOS. Y. COOPER, 

Senator for Delaware f) 0 ., 
ROBT. L. McCLELLAN, 
Senator for Chester Co., 
JOHN B. WARFEL, 

Senator from Lancaster Co., 


E. W. BAILY, 

House of Peps., Pa., 
JOHN P. EDGE, 
House of Reps., Pa., 
GEO. F. SMITH, 
House of Reps., Pa., 
WM. M. BROWN, 
House of Reps., Pa. 


61 


Coatesville, Pa., Feb. 4, 1875. 

I do not know what Mr. J. Williams Thorne believes 


about the existence of Almighty God, but, I can say that, 
so far as I know, he has never been charged, in this com¬ 
munity, with denying the existence of a Supreme Being. 

JAMES ROBERTS, 

Pastor of Coatesville Freshfn Church . 

The undersigned, citizens of Coatesville, Chester Co., 
Pennsylvania, being personally or by reputation acquaint¬ 
ed with J. Williams Thorne, a member elect of the North 
Carolina Legislature, and having learned that he has been 
arraigned before the Committee on Elections and Privi¬ 
leges of said Legislature on the charge of a disbelief in a 
God, have no hesitation in saying, that while his belief 
may have differed in many respects from ours, we have 
never heard him deny the existence of a God, nor have we 
ever heard him characterized as an Atheist or the disbelief 
in a God imputed to him in this community in which he 
was born and resided up to the time of his removal to the 
State of North Carolina. 


WILLIAM T. HUNT, 
WM. R. ASH, 

BENJ. T. LEWIS, 
ROBERT YOUNG, 

J. M. BUSHONG, 
JESSE SHALLCROSS, 
JOS. N. WOODWARD, 
CALEB MERCER, 

JOS. C. KAUFFMAN, 
CHAS. L. COOK, 

H. C. NIELDS, 

JOHN E. STOTT, 


F. G. PARKE, 

Q. LEWIS POTTS, 
W. B. MINSTER, 
GEO. H. WINDLE, 
MOSES RAMBO, 
JOSEPH GRAHAM. 
ELLIS SPEAKMAN. 
C. N. SPEAKMAN,' 
WASH. MILLER, 
ROBERT L. BLACK. 
THOS. II. WINDLE. 
O. H. BRANSON. 


West Chester, Penn., Feb. 4, 1875. 

To all whom it may concern: 

We, the undersigned, being personally acquainted with 
J. Williams Thorne, (formerly of Chester County, Penn.,) 
but now of Ridgeway, North Carolina, having heard that 
he has been charged with atheism, beg leave to express 
our utter disbelief in the truth of the accusation. 

J. W. BARNARD, WM. WHITEHEAD, 

JOSEPH J. LEWIS, ROB’T C. SMEDLEY, 

WM. M. HAYES, WM. DAREINGTON, 

A. WANGER, WM. H. DOCK. 

WALTER HIBBARD, 


C) 2 


Wilmington, Del., Feb. 5th, 1875. 


To all idiom it may concern : 

The undersigned having long Imown and 'loved J. W. 
Thorne, are prepared to sav that so far from his denying 
the existence of God, we know few men who from their 
earliest life have more constantly and consistently lived in 
the conviction and consciousness of His Presence and 
Power. 


F. ISRAEL, 

D. H. KENT, 

JOHN \Y r AINWRIGIIT, 
SEYMOUR PRESTON, 
MARY A. GRAY, 

LEA PUSEY, 


ANNE K. PUESY, 
THOMAS WORRELL, 
ALLEN GAWTHROP, 
MARY A. GAWTHROP, 
REBECCA MOORE, 


West Chester, Feb. 7th, 1875. 

J. Williams Thorne , Hsy., 

Dear Sir :— I have just been informed that yon have 
been prevented from taking the position to which you have 
been elected, because of a report of your disbelief in Al¬ 
mighty God. 

Now to those who are interested in this matter, 1 would 
say, that I have lived in the same neighborhood all my 
life, and can say that you (J. W. Thorne) did not bear the 
reputation of being an Atheist or a disbeliever in Al¬ 
mighty God. 

You can present this to the committee on this subject, 
and I would say further to them that any amount of tes¬ 
timony can be obtained to disprove the charge made 
against you. Yours truly, 

WM. B. MORRISON, Sheriff. 


333 Walnut St., Philadelphia, Feb. 5, 1875. 

J. Williams Thorne: 

Dear Friend :—I have thy favor of the 3d inst. I 
can freely say that I have never heard thee deny the ex¬ 
istence of a God, although I have known thee long, and 
often heard thee speak in public and in private. 

Very truly, E. W. DAVIS. 

If Col. Folk, of Lenoir, is in town, or W. H. Bailey, of 
Charlotte, and it is necessary for a reference for me, call 


G3 


on them, or thee might on Mr. A. D. Jenkins, or the Sec¬ 
retary of State, to whom Col. Folk introduced me. 

E. M. D. 

« 

No. 214 Main St., Ooatsville, Pa., 

February 4th, 1875. 

J. Williams Thorne: 

Dear Sir:—I am in receipt of yours of Feb. 1st, stat¬ 
ing that you have been arraigned before the Committee on 
Elections and Privileges upon the charge of denying the 
existence of a God. 

In reply I have to say I have frequently been in discus¬ 
sion with you upon Theological Questions , and while there 
seemed to be material difference in our opiuions, I have 
no recollection of you in a single instance either directly 
or by intimation, denying the existence of a Supreme 
Power. It having always been understood that you did be¬ 
lieve in a God, but your exact ideas pertaining to God 
were perhaps not fully understood. 

Very respectfully, 

THOS. FI. WINDLE. 

Germantown, Pa., Feb. 5, 1875. 

J Williams Thorne: 

Your note reached me to-day. In reply 1 can merely 
say that I have, on several occasions, been present when 
you took a part in political discussions ; but I never under¬ 
stood you to deny the existence of God, though you often 
seemed to call in question many of our traditional notions 
of the Deity, and to doubt the authority or validity of 
much that we preachers have to say about Him. 

I do not understand by what process the Legislature 
can go back of your own declaration that you do not noiv 
deny the existence of God . Respectfully, 

OH AS. G. AMES, 
Minister Unitarian Society. 

Office of the “ Chester Yalley Union,” 
Coatesville, Pa., Feb. 5, 1875. 

J. Williams Thorne , JEsq ., 

Dear Str:—I was somewhat surprised to hear of the 
action of the House of Representatives of North Caro- 


64 


lina, in charging you with being an Atheist. They cer¬ 
tainly do not know you as well as I do, for while we differ 
materially on religion, yet I know you have expressed to 
me your belief in a God. Very respectfully, 

WM. J. KAUFMAN, Proprietor. 


West Chester, Pa., Feb. 9, 1875. 

Dear Sir I was pained to see by the papers that you 
have been charged with atheism. I take pleasure in say¬ 
ing to you that while you have been criticised for disunity 
with some ot the creeds and dogmas of the Evangelical 
churchmen, I have never heard them speak of you as an 
atheist. I have known you to lead among us the practi¬ 
cal life of a Christian, and have heard you express belief 
and faith in God. Yours truly, J. W. BARNARD, 

Attorney Counsellor and Barrister at Law. 

To Hon. J. Williams Thorne. 


Christiana, Feb. 6, 1875. 

J. W- Thorne , Esq.; 

Respected Friend : — Yours of the 3d inst. is now be¬ 
fore us and contents considered. We need scarcely say 
that we are both pained and astonished to learn that you 
are arraigned before a Legislative Committee of the House 
of Representatives in the State of North Carolina, on the 
charge of denying the existence of a God. Some of us 
have known you intimately for thirty years, aud we unhesi¬ 
tatingly and unequivocally say that we have never known 
you either in public or private conversation to deny the 
existence of a God. 

It is true we have frequently heard you oppose the 
opinions advanced by certain church members in reference 
to the attributes of God, you always taking the position, 
that the true Christian God was not a being of hatred, car¬ 
nage and injustice, but rather a God of mercy, love and 
justice. In conclusion, will say that the undersigned fully 
concur in the above statements of facts, and remain, 
Yours most respectfully, 

SAML. SLOKOM, A. W. CAIN, 

JOS. D. C. POWNALL, W. P. BR1NTON, 
HENRY MOORE, 

JOHN T. PEARL, 

HUGH RAMBO, Dem., 

J. D. HARRAR, Dem. 


B. F. T1LLUM, 

R. T. WARNER, 

H. LINTON, Dem., 


65 


NATIONAL BANK OF CHESTER VALLEY, 
Ooatesyille, Pa., Feb. 8, 1875. 

J. Williams Thorne , Esq.: 

Dear Sir: T am tu receipt of yours of the 5th inst. 

Having known you by sight and reputation for about 
forty years, and during the last few more intimately, I 
never heard that you ever denied the existence of a Su¬ 
preme Being, 

Your testimony in our Courts ot Justice 1 never heard 
objected to, as it would have been had such been your 
avowed belief, such sentiments disqualifying a man from 
being a competent witness in this Commonwealth. 

Yours truly, F. F. DAVIS, Cashier. 

Heston'ville, Phil a., Feb. 10, 1875. 

J Williams Thorne , Esq., 

Dear Sir: —1 am surprised to hear, by a letter just 
received from Christiana, that you have been accused of 
being an Atheist. I was born and grew up in the same 
neighborhood with you, and have lived and preached for 
a good part of twenty years near your residence, and I 
have always supposed you were a member of the So¬ 
ciety ot Friends, that excellent body of Christians so 
numerous in our part of Pennsylvania. I never beard 
the charge of Atheism brought against you. I know some 
persons were prej udiced against you, and at one time you 
had your barn burnt on account of your opposition to the 
gap gang,” a set of kidnappers, robbers and ruffians (of 
good social connections) who held that community in awe. 
What these refined and pious cut-throats and scoundrels 
thought of your religious views I do not know, as I had 
not the honor to be in their confidence. 

One tiling I do know, that if Southerners are bent on 
driving northern emigrants, by book or crook, on one pre¬ 
text or another, out of politics, in their adopted States, 
the late Democratic victories will be speedily reversed. 
They were a protest against Republican thievery in cities, 
counties, States and in the nation, and in part, a protest 
against Grant’s incompetency. They were not evidences 
that the people have gone, back on the principles of the 
Republican party. You perhaps do not know that at the 
last Presidential election 1 voted for the Democratic can¬ 
didate, and that since then I have generally voted for the 


oanlwlates of that party, and rejoiced last fall in the de¬ 
feat of Butler and the overthrow of the spoils party in this 
State and elsewhere. 

When the war was over, many obscure Republicans like 
myself agreed with Sumner, Andrew, Greeley and Beecher, 
that the utmost lenience should be shown to the South. 
.And the abounding corruption of the dominant party* 
through the incoming of all the carrion crows from the 
two old parties, made us the more willing to see a change 
in the political complexion of the country. But when we 
see attacks made on emigrants front our own neighbor¬ 
hood, whom we know net to be carpet-baggers, but sutlers, 
in good faith, who on their visits to the North make every 
effort to put Southern character and society in a favorable 
light, (as we all know you did ,) we hegiu to feel that the 
South is u joined to her idols,'’—-learning nothing, beget¬ 
ting nothing. We look wistfully again towards Grant 
and Sheridan,-and hunt up the telegram about “ banditti.’* 

Kespectfullv, 

W. Y~ P. NOBLE. 

Adrian, Mich., March l()th, 1875. 

J. Williams Thorne: 

Dear Friend :— -1 have received your noble and mas¬ 
terly reply to Joseph Barker’s lecture comparing infidels 
and Christians, over and over again, to see if I could dis¬ 
cover anything in it that would justify such a charge 
against you as a disbelief in a God, but I have tailed to 
notice anything of the kind. Your criticism of the pro¬ 
fessed Christian Church, and its religious text book, cer¬ 
tainly was fair and bore evidence of its having been writ¬ 
ten in a good spirit. Then your closing remarks savored 
much of a high order of inspiration, and is worthy of the 
careful consideration of every intelligent mind. 

Yours as ever in the cause of human progress, 

SAMUEL P. MOGUL, 

Box 405, Adrian, Michigan. 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, 
Ealeigh, Feb. 10, 1875. 

Messrs. Moring , Dortch and others , Committee on Frici - 

leges and Elections. 

Dear Strs :—As your Committee will be in session 
this evening, and, in order that there maybe no misap- 


prehension in regard to ray ease, I beg leave to make a 
statement as to ray belief in the existence of a God. 

I do solemnly and sincerely declare and affirm, that I 
believe in the same Almighty God, recognized in the Con¬ 
stitution of North Carolina, as the God of all the various 
religious sects, but divested of all the erroneous and pecu¬ 
liar characteristics ascribed to him,by any of them. 

If this is not sufficiently explicit, you will confer an ob- 
ligation on me by stating what confession of religious faith 
wid be satisfactory/ It will give the great pleasure to do 
anything I can, conscientiously, to relieve yon, from what 
I know, must be an unpleasant duty. 

Iii regard to my simple Quaker form of affirmation, by 
turning to page 633, of Battle’s Bevisal, you will find that 
I am fully sustained by the law of North Carolina, which 
expressly declares that Quakers, Moravians, Bunkers and 
Menonites shall be permitted to take such simple form of 
affirmation. Yours truly, 

J. WILLIAMS THORNE. 

1 received kind and appreciative letters from J. Nevin 
Pomeroy* Esq., and Lev. J. Pomeroy, of Parkesburg, 
Chester county, Pa., certifying that I never bore the rep¬ 
utation of being an atheist in my native county, but they 
an mislaid and therefore cannot appear in the present 
edition of this pamphlet. J. W. T. 

The following card will explain my reasons lor a very 
offensive vote to the Democrats which I gave in the 
House just before the sittings of the great Ecclesiastical 
Court: 

“We publish the following communication at the request 
of and in justice to Mr. Thorne, it having been refused an 
insertion m the colmns of the News .— Era : 

I see by the News of Feb. 19th. that you censure me 
for casting my vote against the bill forbidding white chil¬ 
dren to be bouud to colored masters or mistresses. I have 
only to say, that I cast my vote as I did, because I con¬ 
scientiously believed the bill to be in violation not only of 
the “golden rule,” but of all constitutional law. And for 
t her more, that the object to be obtained by the passage 
of the bill is a matter entirely outside of all law, and only 
to be rightly determined by the wishes of the parties con¬ 
cerned. 

I also opposed the bill because, in its operation, there 


OS 


might arise, in the present mixed condition of the races* 
runny cases in which it would be either very difficult or 
impossible to determine the question of color. 

The bill would have met my approbation had the two 
words “white” and “colored” been struck out. The bind¬ 
ing out of children is a species of child-slavery that ought 
never to have had existence, and cannot be too quickly 
abolished. J. WILLIAMS THORNE. 

The following card was placed on the desk of every 
member of the House on the morning of the last day of 
the “Great Ecclesiastical Court” trial: 

CARD FROM MR. THORNE. 

[Advance Sheet of the Era, of February 25 ] 

Raleigh, Feb. 22, 1875. 

Editor of the Era: 

Dear Sir: — I see in the News, of yesterday, that I am 
represented as having testified that f believe only in part 
in the God of the Bible This statement is liable to mis¬ 
apprehension. I believe, absolutely in the God of the 
Bible • but I do not believe in all the characterization of 
Him fouud in that book. The Jew, the Catholic, the Cal¬ 
vinist, the Unitarian and the Universalist, all differ very 
widely and oppositely in their characterization of God; 
yet no one dreams of questioning the eligibility to office 
of any of them I claim, on the same ground, the same 
constitutional eligibility to office; and that I can not be 
justly or legally deprived of it on account of any peculiar 
ideal conception of Almighty God I may entertain or 
avow. 

I am charged, also, with the authorship of an infamous 
pamphlet. But it is not stated wherein the infamy of it 
lies. That pamphlet was written in defence of the ever- 
living, self-existent Almighty God of the Universe, against 
the infamous slanders of many of his ignorant, and some 
of his wicked worshippers. Every position taken is sus¬ 
tained, either by quotations from the Bible itself, or from 
authentic histbry. If any part of that pamphlet can be 
shown to be unfair or erroneous in its statements, I shall 
take the greatest pleasure in making all due correction in 
the promptest manner. 

J. WILLIAMS THORNE 

Note. —The vote of expulsion was 45 to 32. 























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